Hezbollah Chief slammed Egypt for helping Israel kill Gaza Palestinians.
Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah address to a crowd of Lebanese people on December 28, 2008.
The following is the text of his speech:
"In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
Thanks and praise be to God , Lord of the worlds, peace and prayers be to the seal of the prophets, Prophet Muhammad, his infallible progeny, his chosen companions and all the prophets and messengers....
Brothers and sisters,
It is with great misfortune that we begin the new Islamic year and the Christian Gregorian year at a time when we are seeing a huge humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, which has led to the death, martyrdom and injury of countless people.
The number of the martyrs has now increased to over 300 and the number of those injured has risen to over 1,000 in the Gaza Strip, which is under siege, isolated and oppressed. Yet Gaza resists with perseverance.
Today, we need not speak about examples of history as we are witnessing the model of a new Karbala. Today, moment to moment of our lives has become the repetition of the tragedy of Karbala. What is taking place today helps us better understand what happened in the past.
Karbala's reality is about a handful of faithful, non-yielding believers, who held on to their dignity and stood up for the rights of their Ummah and refused to be humiliated and yield to tyranny. Those believers were made to choose between humiliation and unequal confrontation that may lead to martyrdom...and so they chose martyrdom.
This group of believers after being subjected to hunger, thirst, intimidation and threats, came under attack, yet did not retreat. The martyrs then fell one after the other. Is this not what happened to Imam Hossein in Karbala?
It was in Karbala that Imam Hussein set an example and laid the foundation for this Islamic, humanitarian school of thought. Throughout history the followers of this school have never parted with a well-known saying by the Imam. This saying is especially associated with the tenth day of Muharram.
[Hossein pointing to Obaidullah Bin Ziyad said] "Verily, that claimer, the son of a claimer is overwhelmed by shame and disgrace! He has placed us between two choices, to either fight in a disproportionate confrontation or a humiliating and degrading surrender."
Hossein made his choice: "And how far disgrace is from us! God refuses us the life of disgrace, His Messenger and believers do too."
Why did he declare "And how far disgrace is from us", Why did he say "we shall never be disgraced?"
It was not an emotional outburst! The matter was rather one of humanitarian, ideological spiritual, religious and humane commitment springing from human values, dignity and human rights. As Hossein later tells us "...God refuses us the life of disgrace, His Messenger and believers do too. Indeed, proud, exalted and lofty spirits will never prefer to obey the vile people, rather than the death of the honorable ones."
This is the Hosseini-Mohammedan Prophetic school of Karbala. When man chooses the martyrdom of the honorable and the dignified over living the life of vile people, who have been deprived of their honor, dignity, rights and sanctities, man is actually acting in harmony with his innate nature, humanness, religion, Islam and his commitment.
Thus was the choice in Karbala. This was also the choice we made during the July 2006 war when you, the resistance community, and all who had embraced the resistance, were to choose between surrender and confrontation: either a humiliating surrender, in which you had to accept the conditions of America and Israel to end the war, or suffer destruction and massacres.
You chose to stand up and refuse disgrace regardless of the tens of thousands of homes destroyed and the hundreds of those martyrs and injured. You stood up against collusion, betrayal and disgrace for a dignified and honorable death instead.
Hence, some of you were martyred, yet with your martyrdom, you created the historic victory in Lebanon.
Despite the destruction of tens of thousands of your homes, the martyrdom of thousands of your people and the injury of your men, women and children and the small number of supporters by your side and despite facing conspiracies, it was with this Karbala mindset of Hossein that you rejected humiliation and shame and insisted on resistance.
The outcome was a victory of the blood over sword.
What is happening today in Gaza is not similar but identical to what happened in July of 2006.
As Lebanese, we can well understand what is happening in Gaza. It is the same as what happened here, the same choices, the same battle, the same conspiracies and God-willing there will have the same outcome.
When we look at the Gaza Strip, which is subjected to hunger and thirst and surrounded by fire and intimidation and gave martyrs and wounded by the hundreds yesterday, we find that its people remain patient and firm. They do not express weakness or frailty... We see the legitimate Prime Minister Ismail Hanieh coming out from under the rubble and fire to say "even if they wipe out Gaza completely, we will not surrender or back down, and we will preserve our dignity and our rights".
This is truly Karbala...when men facing fire day and night with the martyrs still being mourned, reject humiliation and shame.
Today, brothers and sisters, let me speak openly about certain aspects of this confrontation that I left unsaid in the July War. I well understand the situation faced by our brothers in Gaza. Their situation is more difficult than our situation [was in July 2006 war].
Therefore, they are more concerned about carefully considering and weighing what they say, but let me today call a spade a spade, come what may!
Today, we must express the truth loud and clear, so that the entire nation will become aware of its responsibility in the face of the ongoing situation.
Brothers and sisters,
In Gaza as in Lebanon, the situation is very clear. Let me describe what is happening clearly and explicitly.
It is clear that America and Israel are pursuing a project in the region that seeks to impose an unequal settlement on the rest of the Arab world. After Egypt and Jordan signed so-called peace treaties with the Israelis, only Palestine, Lebanon and Syria remain, and the Americans and Zionists now want to settle the issue according to their conditions.
They want Palestinians, Lebanese and Syrians to obey and surrender to these conditions without having any other option.
To impose these conditions, Americans and Zionists are using force, pressure, blockade, internal strife, provocation of internal sedition among resistance movements, media, political and psychological warfare, assassinations and wars.
Their intention is to subdue those who have so far refused to yield to the will and conditions of America and Israel. Some Arab regimes have also been true accomplices in this project.
It is not true that there is Arab silence. We see help extended to Israel, I do not mean all Arabs or all Arab regimes; only those which have signed so-called peace treaties with Israel. Today they are helping Zionists politically, psychologically, socially, culturally and media-wise, through security and the military, on preparing the circumstances for the surrender of the resistors against the American-Zionist project in the Palestine issue.
So let us be very utterly clear. In our region, Arab countries are forging partnerships with the Israelis.
The 2006 war was waged against us in Lebanon with Arab consent and upon Arab request. The Israelis were crystal clear when they exposed this, and the Arab regimes cannot deny it because the Israelis may produce evidence of this collusion -- that they were contacted and asked to rid them of Hezbollah.
When the war started, they were comforting the Israelis after their initial failure in the first few days. Yet, those Arab regimes continued to demand Israel to eliminate of Hezbollah and that Israel sever Hezbollah's head.
The same thing is happening in Gaza today. Those same sides are asking Israel to eliminate Hamas, the Islamic Jihad and the rest of the resistance factions to do away with and settle this battle once and for all. The truth is that they are helping the Zionist entity in this.
We have heard, and this is very unfortunate, that Israeli officials say that the magnitude of Arab support for the war on Gaza well exceed the support they extended for the Israeli war on Lebanon in July 2006.
This is the true picture. I can even tell you that some of these Arab regimes are the real cause behind the division among the Palestinians.
These regimes contributed, instigated, financed and armed, so that fighting is drawn to Palestinian factions, exactly what they did in Lebanon before.
The former [Lebanese] cabinet would not have dared to make such notorious decisions on May 5, had it not been for the encouragement and support of these Arab regimes. They wanted to drag Lebanon into the grip of a cruel internal war and internal sedition, but the performance of the opposition in those days made all their efforts in vein.
They are not neutral. They are convinced that what they do is right and have committed themselves to this project, which is very unfortunate to see.
When infighting and internal division in Palestine or Lebanon happens, these very same Arab regimes use this as an excuse for inaction and say "Well, look at the Palestinians, what are we to do when they are killing one another?" They only use this excuse to rid themselves of their responsibility toward Palestine and Lebanon.
No one asked these Arab regimes in the July 2006 war nor today in the Gaza Strip to fight for the Lebanese or the Palestinians but only to adopt a fair and appropriate political stand on media issues to say the least. Yet again, as in the July War, we find the Arab regimes hold the victims responsible.
Yesterday, we heard an Egyptian official holding the side that ended the Palestinian national dialogue efforts as responsible for what is now happening in Gaza. By 'side', he meant Hamas. He also said, that in the Egyptian view, since they had issued warnings, those who have not heeded their calls are responsible of what become of them.
How can one believe that such statements have come from an Arab person or official?
When at the height of the blockade on Gaza and when Gazans was suffering from hunger and illness, that same person said, "we will cripple the leg of anyone attempting to cross into Egypt!"
By God, brothers and sisters,
Allow me to draw on history. When we see such examples of officials, leaders and figures in the Arab world, I personally understand something in the words of Hossein who said, "Life under tyranny is death and under such circumstances martyrdom is freedom."
By God, there is no value for life under the control of such figures and leaders who plot and plan against their nation. When 300 people are massacred in Gaza in a matter of minutes, an Arab official holds the victims and martyrs responsible for the confrontation. It is as if they expected Hamas, the Islamic Jihad and the Palestinian factions in Gaza to consent to an extension of the blockade, the calm of the starvation and the calm of the humiliation that they were being subjected to for the past six months!
Today, we hear the same rhetoric we heard during the July 2006 war, an attempt to hold the resistance in Gaza responsible for the war and its consequences. This is shameful and unfortunate.
Some Arab satellite channels, which may as well be called Hebrew channels, that I have been watching yesterday and today covered the Gaza massacre as if these people had died in road accidents in an obscure part of the world!
They report the deaths and then they go back to their regular daily programs, as if nothing happened and no humanitarian calamity is taking place in the Gaza Strip, simply because these channels would feel embarrassed in front of their viewers if they called the victims 'martyrs' rather than 'dead'.
Brothers and sisters, this is the reality of today, the people of Gaza have made a difficult decision: they are in effect exercising that decision with their steadfastness, resistance, defiance, honor and glory as you yourselves did in 2006.
No amount of sacrifices, destruction, tears, blood and abandonment prevents them from continuing to insist on their right to resistance. But what is the responsibility of the nation today?
As a nation our main goal has to be stopping Zionist attacks on Gaza and preventing Israelis from achieving any of their objectives. In this manner, Gaza will be secured despite the gravity of the sacrifices that have to be made. Every state must work toward this goal and not only the citizens of Gaza.
People whose governments have resorted to inaction must force them to act. There is no justification for anyone to say that they cannot do anything because of their repressive regimes.
We must take to the streets in the Arab and Muslim world. We must raise our voices and pressure our governments even if they shoot us, it is still a duty -- for whoever falls martyr in these protests is a martyr on the path to Jerusalem, a martyr of Islam, and a martyr of a whole line of prophets and divine missions, they are martyrs of humanity.
Officials cannot apologize for their inaction and nations cannot complain that they have suppressive rulers.
In the July war, I did not ask this of the Arab people, but in the case of Gaza, I say all of us are duty-bound to take to the streets by the thousands, by the tens and hundreds of thousands, and demand from these government to act responsibly. These governments know full well what they are capable of doing, particularly at a time when the United States and European countries are suffering from financial and economic turmoil.
First of all, today the Arab world possesses oil, money and political strength and with modest efforts can stop the aggression against our people and the people in Gaza.
Secondly, the Arab and Muslim worlds must demand that the Egyptian regime, which has a crucial role in what is happening in Gaza today, not to enter war but to simply open the (Rafah) crossing for food, medicine, water and even weapons to reach our people in Gaza. The people in Gaza are men and women are victory-makers capable of resistance and steadfastness and have performed very well in the past.
In the July war in Lebanon, we did not ask any Arab country to open a battlefront but yes, we did ask for borders to be opened.
This is where we must acknowledge Syria for its assistance that led to our victory in the July war, because despite repeated aerial bombardment of all our border crossings and the main roads, Syria did not close its border with us.
We only ask of Egypt to indefinitely open the crossing for the sake of the living and not for the injured or the martyred.
Egypt, the largest and most important of Arab States, is not a Red Cross or a Red Crescent institution and will not be asked to deal with the people of Gaza in such manner.
What is required of the Egyptian leadership and regime is to resolve this issue and not to politically take advantage of the war to pressure Hamas and those of the resistance in Gaza in a bid to accept Israeli conditions in return for a ceasefire -- as some of us here in Lebanon did in the first days of the July aggression.
But they must politically help the people of Gaza and stop the aggression without forcing them to accept certain conditions. This is their real responsibility. This is what the Arab and Muslim worlds must be demanding of Egypt.
Up until now, we have been cautiously making appeals but after what happened yesterday, we say to the Egyptian regime:
If you do not open the Rafah border crossing, if you do not come to the rescue of your brothers in Gaza, then you are have a hand in the siege and the killing and in causing the Palestinian tragedy.
Egyptian officials have to hear this from all the people of the Arab and Muslims worlds, from religious scholars, political parties, elites, intellectuals and media professionals from all walks of life. They must know that they will be the condemned by history, the entire nation, the prophets and the martyrs if they are not quick to make a humane and historical stand today.
This part of my speech is directed at the people of Egypt, its Muslim, its Arabs, its proud people, the defiant, generous, resistance-loving, decent, courageous and noble people of Egypt, whom we all know what goes on in their hearts and minds. We know their mentality. Let the Egyptian people take to the streets in their millions.
Can the Egyptian police arrest millions of Egyptians?
No! They cannot!
We call upon the people of Egypt because they are the ones facing the regime which has closed the Rafah crossing.
People of Egypt, you must open the Rafah crossing with your bear hands if you must. I am talking of the position of a member of the resistance that fought for 33 days, and on behalf of the people who fought, sacrificed and gave martyrs.
What we know and what we hear about the officers and soldiers of the Egyptian armed forces, who are still proud of their Arab roots and continue to oppose Zionism, despite decades having passed from the Camp David peace agreement.
This is what we know them for. I am not calling for a coup in Egypt, and I am in no position to call for one. But I am calling for generals and officers to ask their political leadership whether it is their devotion to the military, the responsibilities entrusted in them and their rows of medals that prompts them to guard Israeli borders while watching our own people being slaughtered in Gaza?
The presence of everyone today is what will change the equation. The people in Egypt, its political parties, religious scholars, the Al-Azhar religious institution and the armed forces as well as the political elites are what will change the equation. I do not think there is an excuse for anyone to sit back and watch for the way to change the equation today is to modify Egypt's political stance.
That is what rulers of the Arab world and the Egyptian peoples must demand from the rulers of Egypt. If the Rafah crossing is opened for water, medicine, food, money and weapons to our people in Gaza, the epic victory that took place in Lebanon will be once again be repeated. We are confident of this victory despite all the harsh conditions of our people in the Gaza Strip.
Brothers and sisters, should Gaza endure this onslaught for days or weeks, the aggression will stop, as this enemy does not endure a war of attrition nor withstand the long days of war. This enemy will eventually end the aggression; it will fail in its objectives and with that their leaders who wanted to take political power by shedding Palestinian blood will fail.
Yes, some will tell us, in Lebanon too, that the solution lies in comprehensive peace. They will tell us this is the solution that will end the tragedy! Regardless of our ideologically principled position on the subject of comprehensive peace, I ask them what they have achieved from talks with Israel since Madrid and even before Madrid other than being subjected to further massacres, killings, aggression and more humiliation and the yielding to various conditions?
In the Palestinian settlement, the negotiations at Camp David by the late Palestinian president Yasser Arafat were not held with the Likud or Kadima, but with the Labor Party and Barak himself. However, at Camp David, the Palestinians were not even ensured the minimum of their legitimate rights, not even enough to save face.
Which kind of just and comprehensive peace can be achieved be accepting humiliating Israeli conditions that exclude the 'right of return' to Jerusalem, the Palestinian territories where a viable Palestinian state can be established? What is all this nonsense when people are being killed and slaughtered in Palestine?!
As in the past and now in Lebanon, some talk about 'just and comprehensive peace'. I ask them whether they have managed to first convince the Israelis that a 'just and comprehensive peace' can be established that they now demand resistance movements to lay down their arms?
Have the Israelis ever made any concessions until now, in Lebanon, Palestine or anywhere for that matter?
Have the Israelis ever returned your legitimate rights, at least the minimum of them? Never! Some tell us such nonsense that in Lebanon the international community will protect us; well where is the international community that is supposed to be protecting the unarmed people in Gaza, the children and women of Gaza?
They say that we are protected by international resolutions. Where are the international resolutions in the Arab-Israeli conflict, of which not even a single one has been implemented not even Resolution 425?
Arab solidarity will protects us. What Arab solidarity?! Arab rulers waste days before they can agree on holding a meeting and have yet to agree on holding one now as a result of reservations here and there!
Brothers and sisters, what happened and is still happening today in Gaza, and what took place during the July 2006 aggression should be enough to convince each and every Arab and every patriot living in his homeland that what can protect our people and restore our rights is resistance and jihad. All other options are mere illusions!
To wake us up from our slumber -- in both Arab and Muslim worlds -- do we need a hundred more massacres like Qana and Gaza? Do we need the repetition of massacres like Deir Yassin? Do we need hundreds more massacres like that of the Ibrahimi Mosque?
By God, this matter is deeply regrettable because this enemy, whom you want peace with, offers you a new massacre every year or so as proof of its inherent terrorist, criminal and racist nature and its thirst for the blood of the innocent.
Your calls for peace will only be met with more slaughters and murder. Do we need more massacres in order for our leaders, people and elite to realize that we are before an enemy whose inherent nature is brutality, racism and terrorism, with whom it is impossible to establish peace under any circumstances. How then can peace with humiliating conditions be achieved with such an enemy? Do we need more blood to be convinced of that?
We are confident that the people of Gaza and the resistance have unshakable faith in God and divine victory, although some may not believe in this.
Here and on your behalf, on behalf of the resistance of Lebanon, the families of the martyrs, of prisoners, the wounded, and on behalf of every resistance member and honorable Mujahid in Lebanon, I congratulate Gazans on their martyrs as we pay our condolences to the families of martyrs and ask God Almighty for a speedy recovery of their wounded.
The Gazans are on the field, steadfast in battle and have limitless devotion. They are a people of dignity, defiance and resistance.
These are the real factors that will bring victory. Faith, loyalty, honesty, consistency and steadfastness is what will bring victory, and God is your aide. The entire Arab world is duty-bound to stand by your side. It is not permissible for anyone to lag from their abilities and potential in your support and aid.
As for Lebanon, I like to say a few words about the current events. Since the beginning of the bloody Israeli aggression on Gaza, Olmert, Barak, Livni and a number of Israeli officials, made strong threats and warnings to any other front, by which they particularly meant Lebanon. They took the proper precautions on the border and are on full alert on the northern border of occupied Palestine.
Today, they sent calls to the settlers in occupied northern Palestine to prepare and equip their shelters.
I do not want to frighten anyone or cause concern, but we cannot mislead anyone here as there are two possibilities:
The first is that everything the Israelis say or do in the northern occupied region of Palestine may be preventative precautions to deal with any developments on the Lebanese front.
The other is that the Israeli enemy is conspiring with some Arab regimes and with the world preoccupied with the financial crisis and the political vacuum created in the US because of the departure of Bush and Obama taking power, it is pondering an act of aggression against Lebanon.
The Israelis may take advantage of this situation in the world to strike Lebanon as they are in need of creating such a situation to gain political leverage in their elections or to restore its deterrent image.
We should not be reassured by such claims that Israel cannot fight on two fronts at the same time. It has fought on 3 and 4 fronts in the past. This must make the Lebanese government, army and people as well as the Lebanese resistance more attentive and cautious not to be tricked by such statements. For instance, one issue is of the missiles discovered eight days ago and just before the military attack on Gaza! I would like to ask: Who placed these missiles where they were before the war began?
When several Katyusha rockets were discovered in al-Naqoura, some Lebanese figures made statements and pointed the finger of blame at us. So much so that one of them even said that no one can make moves in that region, but Hizbullah. Yet, we did not hear these same figures say anything when the Zionists kidnapped the two Tarraf brothers from the Southern Blida within this same period. Their was no evidence of their patriotic concern and bleeding hearts for Lebanon when this happened.
Moreover, if the information upon which they build their political analysis, then this is a disaster as such information has proven to be both incorrect and false and has shown to be someone's attempt to shift the blame on the Hezbollah for that matter.
I would like to say to them that Hezbollah possesses the courage to take responsibility for any action we take. We do not hide or shy away from our responsibilities as some do!
We possess such courage and do not need to defend ourselves against such accusations, but what occurred is, yes, suspicion of the other side. Could Israel have not penetrated southern Lebanon to set up missiles of this type?
Can those many individuals and networks in Lebanon that collaborate with Israel not have carried out such acts to provide a justification for Israel to launch an aggression against Lebanon? Unfortunately, those politicians provided a justification and helped engineer up. When they condemned the Katyusha, they said that this provides a pretext for Israel to attack Lebanon! Who says it provides a pretext?!
Had such an occurrence taken place before, would it have justified an assault on Lebanon to destroy and confront Lebanon?
You are providing Israel with excuses through such rhetoric and absurd and unfounded statements. I will not delve deep into this matter now, but I am in the process of inviting Lebanon, as I do the region, yet my focus now remains on Lebanon specifically, the country that rattled Israel twice, and many more times, the most well-known of such defeats were those of the years 2000 and 2006.
Yes, we must be on alert. I do not want to frighten you but to avoid this subject from becoming a media frenzy, I will tell you that I asked the brothers in the south particularly, to be present, vigilant and cautious as we face a brutal and treacherous enemy. We do not know the size of the schemes hatched around us, regionally and in the world; we are not fearful of what happened in 2006 or of what happened or what is happening in Gaza.
We believe in the choice we made, and are quite prepared to repel any assault on our land, country and dignity. We have written our slogans in blood and are both willing and prepared to confront all aggressors, no matter who they may be.
Brother and sisters, all of us in Lebanon, and throughout the Muslim and Arab worlds, are duty-bound in these historical days, especially in the ten days leading to Ashura, to shoulder our responsibility toward what is happening in Gaza. The burden of what happens in Gaza is not only for the Gazans and Palestinians to bear.
We must continue in our efforts and actions, and should not settle for a protest here and a sit-in there, an action here and another there; we ought to invest every effort in defending our people in Gaza.
Tomorrow has been announced as a day of mourning by [the Supreme Leader of Iran] His Eminence Seyyed Ali Khamenei, for all resistance fighters and all free souls. Tomorrow is important for us to express our solidarity with and sympathy for our people in Gaza and to mourn the martyrs who passed away there.
I invite everyone tomorrow afternoon to participate in a large gathering at al-Rayah stadium to pay tribute and participate in the mourning of the martyrs of the resistance in Gaza and to express our solidarity with the people of Gaza. I know there are many Ashura gatherings scheduled to be held in neighborhoods, mosques and Hoseiniya halls tomorrow.
I call for the cancellation of all of these gatherings and I urge everyone to attend the al-Rayah gathering instead. I invite all men, women, children, young and old to come together in a stand of solidarity with Gaza and its martyrs.
Tomorrow, we ought to make the world hear our voice and see our fearless Hosseini fists risen in declaration to the world that we will remain standing and unyielding to murder, the shedding of blood and intimidation.
I would always invite you to the al-Rayah stadium on the tenth of Muharram, but tomorrow is the day of Ashura for us since everyday is an Ashura and every land is Karbala. Tomorrow is a call to Hossein and an answer to his call; tomorrow it is upon you to respond to Hossein's call. "
- END -
Wednesday, 31 December 2008
Monday, 29 December 2008
Al Mahdi Scouts
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This is how Hizbollah prepares the young for wars and fighting.
IMAM AL MAHDI SCOUTS
President Dr. Bilal Naim
Founded: Lebanon May 5, 1985
Membership 42,000
Website: www.almahdiscouts.org
The Imam al-Mahdi Scouts are a youth movement of the Hezbollah in Lebanon, named for Muhammad al-Mahdi and established on May 5, 1985.
The Scout motto is "Together to Serve".
The Imam al-Mahdi Scouts became a member of the Lebanese Scouting Federation and thus of the World Organization of the Scout Movement in 1998. The organization has about 42,000 members of both sexes between the ages of 8-16 organized into 500 local groups.
Program
Activities include camping, community service projects such as helping the disabled and cleaning places of worship, computing, fishing, team sports, boxing, reading classes, learning administrative skills, learning about Islam and protecting the environment.
The organization is divided in three sections according to age:
Cubs
Scouts
Rangers
Emblem and uniform
The previous emblem of the Imam al-Mahdi Scouts includes the Scout fleur-de-lis, in the top center of which is a hand with an out-turned palm, possibly the Hand of Fatima, and supported on left and right by single scimitars; the text, which says "obey". The new emblem changes the color pattern and removes the scimitars.
On January 1, 2007, Fox News reported on the Imam al-Mahdi Scouts. In the report footage, the youth look very much like mainstream Scouts, with uniforms in light and medium blue, white, yellow and purple for different groups, as well as badges similar to mainstream Scouts. The flag of the Imam al-Mahdi Scouts was shown flown from cars and along the roadside and features their emblem.
Controversy
According to the Israeli Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (ITIC) at the Center for Special Studies (CSS), the Imam al-Mahdi Scouts were established in 1985 and are operated under the jurisdiction of the Lebanese Ministry of Education despite the movement's instructing tens of thousands of children and teenagers in military tactics and that they are "indoctrinated with the principles of radical Iranian Islam" at summer training camps in Shi'a communities in Beirut, the Beqaa Valley and south Lebanon.
The ITIC reports that male Imam al-Mahdi Scouts turning 17 make their way into Hezbollah's fighting ranks and that information appearing on the Imam al-Mahdi Scouts calendar notes more than 120 of the Scout’s members died as shaheeds in Hezbollah militant activity, including suicide bombers; however, a Fox report said very few of the Scouts are actually chosen. In an interview with an Al Jazeera journalist, a Scout leader stated that there was no obligation for Scouts to join the armed militants.
Another source for the involvement of the association in Hezbollah militant activity is a report published in Egyptian weekly Roz Al-Yusuf on August 18, 2006 by Mirfat Al-Hakim.
Robert F.Worth discussed the connections of the Mahdi Scouts with the Hezbollah in an article published in Scotland On Sunday on November 23, 2008. In this article Bilal Naim, former Hezbollah's director for the Mahdi Scouts is cited: "After age 16 the boys mostly go to resistance or military activities".
German psychologist and researcher on fanaticism Peter Conzen compared Imam al-Mahdi Scouts and Hitler Youth, saying that both associations defraud children of their youth.
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THE NEW YORK TIMES - November 20, 2008
Generation Faithful
Hezbollah Seeks to Marshal the Piety of the Young
On a Bekaa Valley playing field gilded by late-afternoon sun, hundreds of young men wearing Boy Scout-style uniforms and kerchiefs stand rigidly at attention as a military band plays, its marchers bearing aloft the distinctive yellow banner of Hezbollah, the militant Shiite movement.
They are adolescents — 17 or 18 years old — but they have the stern faces of adult men, lightly bearded, some of them with dark spots in the center of their foreheads from bowing down in prayer. Each of them wears a tiny picture of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Shiite cleric who led the Iranian revolution, on his chest.
“You are our leader!” the boys chant in unison, as a Hezbollah official walks to a podium and addresses them with a Koranic invocation. “We are your men!”
This is the vanguard of Hezbollah’s youth movement, the Mahdi Scouts. Some of the graduates gathered at this ceremony will go on to join Hezbollah’s guerrilla army, fighting Israel in the hills of southern Lebanon. Others will work in the party’s bureaucracy. The rest will probably join the fast-growing and passionately loyal base of support that has made Hezbollah the most powerful political, military and social force in Lebanon.
At a time of religious revival across the Islamic world, intense piety among the young is nothing unusual. But in Lebanon, Hezbollah — the name means the party of God — has marshaled these ambient energies for a highly political project: educating a younger generation to continue its military struggle against Israel. Hezbollah’s battlefield resilience has made it a model for other militant groups across the Middle East, including Hamas. And that success is due, in no small measure, to the party’s extraordinarily comprehensive array of religion-themed youth and recruitment programs.
There is a network of schools— some of them run by Hezbollah, others affiliated with or controlled by it — largely shielded from outsiders. There is a nationwide network of clerics who provide weekly religious lessons to young people on a neighborhood basis. There is a group for students at unaffiliated schools and colleges that presents Hezbollah to a wider audience. The party organizes non-Scout-related summer camps and field trips, and during Muslim religious holidays it arranges events to encourage young people to express their devotion in public and to perform charity work.
“It’s like a complete system, from primary school to university,” said Talal Atrissi, a political analyst at Lebanese University who has been studying Hezbollah for decades. “The goal is to prepare a generation that has deep religious faith and is also close to Hezbollah.”
Much of this activity is fueled by a broader Shiite religious resurgence in Lebanon that began after the Iranian revolution in 1979. But Hezbollah has gone further than any other organization in mobilizing this force, both to build its own support base and to immunize Shiite youths from the temptations of Lebanon’s diverse and mostly secular society.
Hezbollah’s influence on Lebanese youth is very difficult to quantify because of the party’s extreme secrecy and the general absence of reliable statistics in the country. It is clear that the Shiite religious schools, in which Hezbollah exercises a dominant influence, have grown over the past two decades from a mere handful into a major national network. Other, less visible avenues may be equally important, like the growing number of clerics associated with the movement.
Hezbollah and its allies have also adapted and expanded religious rituals involving children, starting at ever-earlier ages. Women, who play a more prominent role in Hezbollah than they do in most other radical Islamic groups, are especially important in creating what is often called “the jihad atmosphere” among children.
‘This Is Women’s Jihad’
As night fell in the southern Lebanese town of Jibchit, a lone woman in a black gown strode purposefully into the spotlight on a makeshift stage. Before her sat hundreds of Mahdi Scout parents, who had come to watch one of the central events of their young daughters’ lives.
“Welcome, welcome,” their host said. “We appreciate your presence here tonight. Your daughters are now putting on this angelic costume for the first time.”
Munira Halawi, a slim, 23-year-old Hezbollah member with the direct gaze and passionate manner of an evangelist, was the master of ceremonies at a ritual known as a Takleef Shara’ee, or the holy responsibility, in which some 300 female scouts ages 8 or 9 formally donned the hijab, or Islamic head scarf.
For the girls, the ritual was a moment of tremendous symbolic significance, marking the start of a deeper religious commitment and the approach of adulthood. These ceremonies, once rare, have become common in recent years.
It was a milestone as well for Ms. Halawi, who had been practicing with the girls for weeks: she was now a qa’ida, a young female leader who helps supervise the education of younger girls.
Born in 1985, Ms. Halawi is in some ways typical of the younger generation of female Hezbollah members. She grew up after Hezbollah and its allies had begun establishing what they called the hala islamiyya, or Islamic atmosphere, in Shiite Lebanon. She quickly became far more devout than her parents, who had grown up during an era when secular ideologies like pan-Arabism and Communism were popular in Lebanon. She married early and had the first of her two children before turning 17.
As Ms. Halawi finished her introduction, the girls began walking up the aisle toward the stage, dressed in silky white gowns with furry hoods. Bubbles descended from the wings. White smoke drifted up from a fog machine. A sound system played Hezbollah anthems — deep male voices booming to a marching band’s rhythm. The parents applauded wildly, the mothers ululating.
The two-and-a-half hour ceremony that followed — in which the girls performed a play about the meaning of the hijab and a bearded Hezbollah cleric delivered a long political speech — was a concentrated dose of Hezbollah ideology, seamlessly blending millenarian Shiite doctrine with furious diatribes against Israel.
Again and again, the girls were told that the hijab was an all-important emblem of Islamic virtue and that it was the secret power that allowed Hezbollah to liberate southern Lebanon. The struggle with Israel, they were told, is the same as the struggle of Shiite Islam’s founding figures, Ali and Hussein, against unjust rulers in their time.
Through it all, Ms. Halawi was the presiding figure on the stage, introducing each section of the evening and reciting Koranic verses and her own poetic homages to the veil.
“Our veil is a jewel-encrusted crown, dignified and lofty, that God made to make us blossom,” she said at one point, gazing out into the darkness with a look of passionate intensity. “He opened the door of obedience and contentment for us.”
A few days later, relaxing over tea at her sister’s house, Ms. Halawi, still dressed in a black abaya, an Islamic gown, expanded on the theme of the ceremony. Religious education now begins much earlier than it did in her parents’ time, she explained. Islamic schools, some run by Hezbollah, begin Koranic lessons at the age of 4, and it is common for girls to start fasting and wearing a hijab at 8. In all this, the mother’s guidance is the key.
“This is women’s jihad,” Ms. Halawi said.
Camp, With a Moral Portion
From a distance, it resembles any other Boy Scout camp in the world. Two rows of canvas tents face each other on the banks of the Litani River, the powder-blue stream that runs across southern Lebanon not far from the Israeli border. A hand-built wooden jungle gym stands near the camp entrance, where pine trees sway in the breeze and dry, brown hills are visible in the distance.
Then, planted on sticks in the river, two huge posters bearing the faces of Ayatollah Khomeini and Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, come into view.
“Since 1985 we have managed to raise a good generation,” said Muhammad al-Akhdar, 25, a scout leader, as he showed a visitor around the grounds. “We had 850 kids here this summer, ages 9 to 15.”
This camp is called Tyr fil Say, one of the sites in south Lebanon where the Mahdi Scouts train. Much of what they do is similar to the activities of scouts the world over: learning to swim, to build campfires, to tie knots and to play sports. Mr. Akhdar described some of the games the young scouts play, including one where they divide into two teams — Americans and the Resistance — and try to throw one another into the river.
The Mahdi Scouts also get visits from Hezbollah fighters, wearing camouflage and toting AK-47s, who talk about fighting Israel.
Mr. Akhdar led a visitor around the tents, where boys had been spelling out Koranic phrases like “the promise” and “the owner of time” using stones. There was also a meticulously arranged grave, complete with lettering and decoration. In place of the headstone was a small photograph of Imad Mugniyah, the Hezbollah commander who was killed in February and who was widely viewed in the West as the mastermind of decades of bombings, kidnappings and hijackings.
The Mahdi Scouts were founded in 1985, shortly after Hezbollah itself. Officially, the group is like any of the other 29 different scout groups in Lebanon, many of which belong to political parties and serve as feeders for them.
But the Mahdi Scouts are different. They are much larger; with an estimated 60,000 children and Scout leaders, they are six times the size of any other Lebanese scout group. Even their marching movements are more militaristic than the others, according to Mustafa Muhammad Abdel Rasoul, the head of the Lebanese Scouts’ Union. While the Mahdi Scouts fall under the umbrella of the Lebanese union, they have no direct affiliation with the international scouting body based in Switzerland. Because of the Scouts’ reputation as a feeder for Hezbollah’s armed force, the party has become extremely protective and rarely grants outsiders access to them.
Still, Hezbollah officials often casually mention the link between the Scouts and the guerrilla force.
“After age 16 the boys mostly go to resistance or military activities,” said Bilal Naim, who served as Hezbollah’s director for the Mahdi Scouts until last year.
Another difference from most scout groups lies in the program. Religious and moral instruction — rather than physical activity — occupy the vast bulk of the Mahdi Scouts’ curriculum, and the scout leaders adhere strictly to lessons outlined in books for each age group.
Those books, copies of which were provided to this reporter by a Hezbollah official, show an extraordinary focus on religious themes and a full-time preoccupation with Hezbollah’s military struggle against Israel. The chapter titles, for the 12- to 14-year-old age group, include “Love and Hate in God,” “Know Your Enemy,” “Loyalty to the Leader” and “Facts About Jews.” Jews are described as cruel, corrupt, cowardly and deceitful, and they are called the killers of prophets. The chapter on Jews states that “their Talmud says those outside the Jewish religion are animals.”
In every chapter, the children are required to write down or recite Koranic verses that illustrate the theme in question. They are taught to venerate Ayatollah Khomeini — Iran has been a longtime supporter of Hezbollah, providing it with money, weapons and training — and the leaders of Hezbollah. They are told to hate Israel and to avoid people who are not devout. Questions at the ends of chapters encourage the children to “watch your heart” and “assess your heart” to check wrong impulses and encourage virtuous ones. One note to the instructors reminds them that young scouts are in a sensitive phase of development that should be considered “a launching toward commitment.”
Secular Influences
In the West, the image of Hezbollah is often that of its bearded, young guerrilla fighters, dressed in military camouflage and clutching AK-47s. But Hezbollah’s inner core of fighters and employees — its full-time members — is a far smaller group than its supporters. This broader category, covering the better part of Lebanon’s roughly one million Shiites, includes reservists, who will fight if needed; doctors and engineers, who contribute their skills; and mere sympathizers.
In that sense, a more representative figure of the party’s young following might be someone like Ali al-Sayyed. A quiet, clean-cut 24-year-old, Mr. Sayyed grew up in south Lebanon and now works as an accountant in Beirut. Hezbollah has offered him jobs, but he prefers to maintain his independence.
But his entire life has been lived in the shadow of Hezbollah. He attended a Mustafa high school, one of a national network of schools affiliated with the party, where he spent at least five class hours every week studying religion and listening to his teachers pray for Hezbollah’s fighters and Ayatollah Khomeini. After school and during the summers, he was with the Mahdi Scouts. Later he became a Scout leader.
He is extremely devout — he will not shake hands with women — and mentions his willingness to fight and die for Hezbollah as though it were a matter of course.
“They made us, so of course I would sacrifice my life for them,” he said as he sat gazing through the glass wall of a Beirut cafe on an autumn evening. “Before, the Shiites were in a wretched condition.”
Yet Mr. Sayyed’s generation is also in many ways more exposed to the temptations of Lebanon’s secular and often decadent society than its predecessors.
That shift is apparent even in the Dahiya, or Suburb, the vast enclave on the southern edge of Beirut where most of Lebanon’s Shiites live and where Hezbollah has its headquarters.
Once an austere ghetto where bearded men would chastise women who dared to appear in public without an Islamic head scarf, the Dahiya is now a far more open place. There are Internet cafes, music and DVD shops, Chinese restaurants and an amusement park called Fantasy World. There is no public consumption of alcohol, but the streets are thick with satellite dishes and open-air television sets. Lingerie shops display posters of scantily-clad models in their windows, and young women walk past in tight jeans, their hair uncovered.
The cafe where Mr. Sayyed was sitting, on the outskirts of Dahiya, was typical. Hezbollah banners were visible on the street outside, but on the inside young people sat at aluminum tables sipping cappuccinos, eating doughnuts and listening to their iPods.
“Hezbollah tries to keep the youth living in a religious atmosphere, but they can’t force them,” he said, gazing uneasily at the street outside.
Mr. Sayyed mentioned Rami Olaik, a former Hezbollah firebrand who left the party and this year published a book about his indoctrination and gradual disenchantment. The book recounts Mr. Olaik’s struggle to reconcile his sexual yearnings with the party’s discipline, and his disgust at the way party members manipulated religious doctrine to justify their encounters with prostitutes. Some unmarried Hezbollah members engage in “temporary marriage” to have sexual relationships, an arrangement allowed by some Shiite religious authorities.
Hezbollah officials say they cannot coerce young people, because it would only create rebels like Mr. Olaik. Instead, they leave them largely free in Lebanon’s pluralistic maze, trusting in the power of their religious training.
But there is a limit to Hezbollah’s flexibility. All young members and supporters are encouraged to develop a hiss amni, or security sense, and are warned to beware of curious outsiders, who may be spies.
After Mr. Sayyed had been talking to a foreign journalist in the coffee shop for more than an hour, a hard-looking young man at a neighboring table began staring at him. Suddenly looking nervous, Mr. Sayyed agreed to continue the conversation on the cafe’s second floor. But he seemed agitated, and later he repeatedly postponed another meeting planned for the next week.
Finally, he sent an apologetic e-mail message explaining that he would not be able to meet again.
“As you know, we live in a war with Israel and America,” he wrote in stumbling English, “and they want to war us (destroy) in all the way.” [NYT and Wiki]
--
This is how Hizbollah prepares the young for wars and fighting.
IMAM AL MAHDI SCOUTS
President Dr. Bilal Naim
Founded: Lebanon May 5, 1985
Membership 42,000
Website: www.almahdiscouts.org
The Imam al-Mahdi Scouts are a youth movement of the Hezbollah in Lebanon, named for Muhammad al-Mahdi and established on May 5, 1985.
The Scout motto is "Together to Serve".
The Imam al-Mahdi Scouts became a member of the Lebanese Scouting Federation and thus of the World Organization of the Scout Movement in 1998. The organization has about 42,000 members of both sexes between the ages of 8-16 organized into 500 local groups.
Program
Activities include camping, community service projects such as helping the disabled and cleaning places of worship, computing, fishing, team sports, boxing, reading classes, learning administrative skills, learning about Islam and protecting the environment.
The organization is divided in three sections according to age:
Cubs
Scouts
Rangers
Emblem and uniform
The previous emblem of the Imam al-Mahdi Scouts includes the Scout fleur-de-lis, in the top center of which is a hand with an out-turned palm, possibly the Hand of Fatima, and supported on left and right by single scimitars; the text, which says "obey". The new emblem changes the color pattern and removes the scimitars.
On January 1, 2007, Fox News reported on the Imam al-Mahdi Scouts. In the report footage, the youth look very much like mainstream Scouts, with uniforms in light and medium blue, white, yellow and purple for different groups, as well as badges similar to mainstream Scouts. The flag of the Imam al-Mahdi Scouts was shown flown from cars and along the roadside and features their emblem.
Controversy
According to the Israeli Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (ITIC) at the Center for Special Studies (CSS), the Imam al-Mahdi Scouts were established in 1985 and are operated under the jurisdiction of the Lebanese Ministry of Education despite the movement's instructing tens of thousands of children and teenagers in military tactics and that they are "indoctrinated with the principles of radical Iranian Islam" at summer training camps in Shi'a communities in Beirut, the Beqaa Valley and south Lebanon.
The ITIC reports that male Imam al-Mahdi Scouts turning 17 make their way into Hezbollah's fighting ranks and that information appearing on the Imam al-Mahdi Scouts calendar notes more than 120 of the Scout’s members died as shaheeds in Hezbollah militant activity, including suicide bombers; however, a Fox report said very few of the Scouts are actually chosen. In an interview with an Al Jazeera journalist, a Scout leader stated that there was no obligation for Scouts to join the armed militants.
Another source for the involvement of the association in Hezbollah militant activity is a report published in Egyptian weekly Roz Al-Yusuf on August 18, 2006 by Mirfat Al-Hakim.
Robert F.Worth discussed the connections of the Mahdi Scouts with the Hezbollah in an article published in Scotland On Sunday on November 23, 2008. In this article Bilal Naim, former Hezbollah's director for the Mahdi Scouts is cited: "After age 16 the boys mostly go to resistance or military activities".
German psychologist and researcher on fanaticism Peter Conzen compared Imam al-Mahdi Scouts and Hitler Youth, saying that both associations defraud children of their youth.
----
THE NEW YORK TIMES - November 20, 2008
Generation Faithful
Hezbollah Seeks to Marshal the Piety of the Young
On a Bekaa Valley playing field gilded by late-afternoon sun, hundreds of young men wearing Boy Scout-style uniforms and kerchiefs stand rigidly at attention as a military band plays, its marchers bearing aloft the distinctive yellow banner of Hezbollah, the militant Shiite movement.
They are adolescents — 17 or 18 years old — but they have the stern faces of adult men, lightly bearded, some of them with dark spots in the center of their foreheads from bowing down in prayer. Each of them wears a tiny picture of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Shiite cleric who led the Iranian revolution, on his chest.
“You are our leader!” the boys chant in unison, as a Hezbollah official walks to a podium and addresses them with a Koranic invocation. “We are your men!”
This is the vanguard of Hezbollah’s youth movement, the Mahdi Scouts. Some of the graduates gathered at this ceremony will go on to join Hezbollah’s guerrilla army, fighting Israel in the hills of southern Lebanon. Others will work in the party’s bureaucracy. The rest will probably join the fast-growing and passionately loyal base of support that has made Hezbollah the most powerful political, military and social force in Lebanon.
At a time of religious revival across the Islamic world, intense piety among the young is nothing unusual. But in Lebanon, Hezbollah — the name means the party of God — has marshaled these ambient energies for a highly political project: educating a younger generation to continue its military struggle against Israel. Hezbollah’s battlefield resilience has made it a model for other militant groups across the Middle East, including Hamas. And that success is due, in no small measure, to the party’s extraordinarily comprehensive array of religion-themed youth and recruitment programs.
There is a network of schools— some of them run by Hezbollah, others affiliated with or controlled by it — largely shielded from outsiders. There is a nationwide network of clerics who provide weekly religious lessons to young people on a neighborhood basis. There is a group for students at unaffiliated schools and colleges that presents Hezbollah to a wider audience. The party organizes non-Scout-related summer camps and field trips, and during Muslim religious holidays it arranges events to encourage young people to express their devotion in public and to perform charity work.
“It’s like a complete system, from primary school to university,” said Talal Atrissi, a political analyst at Lebanese University who has been studying Hezbollah for decades. “The goal is to prepare a generation that has deep religious faith and is also close to Hezbollah.”
Much of this activity is fueled by a broader Shiite religious resurgence in Lebanon that began after the Iranian revolution in 1979. But Hezbollah has gone further than any other organization in mobilizing this force, both to build its own support base and to immunize Shiite youths from the temptations of Lebanon’s diverse and mostly secular society.
Hezbollah’s influence on Lebanese youth is very difficult to quantify because of the party’s extreme secrecy and the general absence of reliable statistics in the country. It is clear that the Shiite religious schools, in which Hezbollah exercises a dominant influence, have grown over the past two decades from a mere handful into a major national network. Other, less visible avenues may be equally important, like the growing number of clerics associated with the movement.
Hezbollah and its allies have also adapted and expanded religious rituals involving children, starting at ever-earlier ages. Women, who play a more prominent role in Hezbollah than they do in most other radical Islamic groups, are especially important in creating what is often called “the jihad atmosphere” among children.
‘This Is Women’s Jihad’
As night fell in the southern Lebanese town of Jibchit, a lone woman in a black gown strode purposefully into the spotlight on a makeshift stage. Before her sat hundreds of Mahdi Scout parents, who had come to watch one of the central events of their young daughters’ lives.
“Welcome, welcome,” their host said. “We appreciate your presence here tonight. Your daughters are now putting on this angelic costume for the first time.”
Munira Halawi, a slim, 23-year-old Hezbollah member with the direct gaze and passionate manner of an evangelist, was the master of ceremonies at a ritual known as a Takleef Shara’ee, or the holy responsibility, in which some 300 female scouts ages 8 or 9 formally donned the hijab, or Islamic head scarf.
For the girls, the ritual was a moment of tremendous symbolic significance, marking the start of a deeper religious commitment and the approach of adulthood. These ceremonies, once rare, have become common in recent years.
It was a milestone as well for Ms. Halawi, who had been practicing with the girls for weeks: she was now a qa’ida, a young female leader who helps supervise the education of younger girls.
Born in 1985, Ms. Halawi is in some ways typical of the younger generation of female Hezbollah members. She grew up after Hezbollah and its allies had begun establishing what they called the hala islamiyya, or Islamic atmosphere, in Shiite Lebanon. She quickly became far more devout than her parents, who had grown up during an era when secular ideologies like pan-Arabism and Communism were popular in Lebanon. She married early and had the first of her two children before turning 17.
As Ms. Halawi finished her introduction, the girls began walking up the aisle toward the stage, dressed in silky white gowns with furry hoods. Bubbles descended from the wings. White smoke drifted up from a fog machine. A sound system played Hezbollah anthems — deep male voices booming to a marching band’s rhythm. The parents applauded wildly, the mothers ululating.
The two-and-a-half hour ceremony that followed — in which the girls performed a play about the meaning of the hijab and a bearded Hezbollah cleric delivered a long political speech — was a concentrated dose of Hezbollah ideology, seamlessly blending millenarian Shiite doctrine with furious diatribes against Israel.
Again and again, the girls were told that the hijab was an all-important emblem of Islamic virtue and that it was the secret power that allowed Hezbollah to liberate southern Lebanon. The struggle with Israel, they were told, is the same as the struggle of Shiite Islam’s founding figures, Ali and Hussein, against unjust rulers in their time.
Through it all, Ms. Halawi was the presiding figure on the stage, introducing each section of the evening and reciting Koranic verses and her own poetic homages to the veil.
“Our veil is a jewel-encrusted crown, dignified and lofty, that God made to make us blossom,” she said at one point, gazing out into the darkness with a look of passionate intensity. “He opened the door of obedience and contentment for us.”
A few days later, relaxing over tea at her sister’s house, Ms. Halawi, still dressed in a black abaya, an Islamic gown, expanded on the theme of the ceremony. Religious education now begins much earlier than it did in her parents’ time, she explained. Islamic schools, some run by Hezbollah, begin Koranic lessons at the age of 4, and it is common for girls to start fasting and wearing a hijab at 8. In all this, the mother’s guidance is the key.
“This is women’s jihad,” Ms. Halawi said.
Camp, With a Moral Portion
From a distance, it resembles any other Boy Scout camp in the world. Two rows of canvas tents face each other on the banks of the Litani River, the powder-blue stream that runs across southern Lebanon not far from the Israeli border. A hand-built wooden jungle gym stands near the camp entrance, where pine trees sway in the breeze and dry, brown hills are visible in the distance.
Then, planted on sticks in the river, two huge posters bearing the faces of Ayatollah Khomeini and Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, come into view.
“Since 1985 we have managed to raise a good generation,” said Muhammad al-Akhdar, 25, a scout leader, as he showed a visitor around the grounds. “We had 850 kids here this summer, ages 9 to 15.”
This camp is called Tyr fil Say, one of the sites in south Lebanon where the Mahdi Scouts train. Much of what they do is similar to the activities of scouts the world over: learning to swim, to build campfires, to tie knots and to play sports. Mr. Akhdar described some of the games the young scouts play, including one where they divide into two teams — Americans and the Resistance — and try to throw one another into the river.
The Mahdi Scouts also get visits from Hezbollah fighters, wearing camouflage and toting AK-47s, who talk about fighting Israel.
Mr. Akhdar led a visitor around the tents, where boys had been spelling out Koranic phrases like “the promise” and “the owner of time” using stones. There was also a meticulously arranged grave, complete with lettering and decoration. In place of the headstone was a small photograph of Imad Mugniyah, the Hezbollah commander who was killed in February and who was widely viewed in the West as the mastermind of decades of bombings, kidnappings and hijackings.
The Mahdi Scouts were founded in 1985, shortly after Hezbollah itself. Officially, the group is like any of the other 29 different scout groups in Lebanon, many of which belong to political parties and serve as feeders for them.
But the Mahdi Scouts are different. They are much larger; with an estimated 60,000 children and Scout leaders, they are six times the size of any other Lebanese scout group. Even their marching movements are more militaristic than the others, according to Mustafa Muhammad Abdel Rasoul, the head of the Lebanese Scouts’ Union. While the Mahdi Scouts fall under the umbrella of the Lebanese union, they have no direct affiliation with the international scouting body based in Switzerland. Because of the Scouts’ reputation as a feeder for Hezbollah’s armed force, the party has become extremely protective and rarely grants outsiders access to them.
Still, Hezbollah officials often casually mention the link between the Scouts and the guerrilla force.
“After age 16 the boys mostly go to resistance or military activities,” said Bilal Naim, who served as Hezbollah’s director for the Mahdi Scouts until last year.
Another difference from most scout groups lies in the program. Religious and moral instruction — rather than physical activity — occupy the vast bulk of the Mahdi Scouts’ curriculum, and the scout leaders adhere strictly to lessons outlined in books for each age group.
Those books, copies of which were provided to this reporter by a Hezbollah official, show an extraordinary focus on religious themes and a full-time preoccupation with Hezbollah’s military struggle against Israel. The chapter titles, for the 12- to 14-year-old age group, include “Love and Hate in God,” “Know Your Enemy,” “Loyalty to the Leader” and “Facts About Jews.” Jews are described as cruel, corrupt, cowardly and deceitful, and they are called the killers of prophets. The chapter on Jews states that “their Talmud says those outside the Jewish religion are animals.”
In every chapter, the children are required to write down or recite Koranic verses that illustrate the theme in question. They are taught to venerate Ayatollah Khomeini — Iran has been a longtime supporter of Hezbollah, providing it with money, weapons and training — and the leaders of Hezbollah. They are told to hate Israel and to avoid people who are not devout. Questions at the ends of chapters encourage the children to “watch your heart” and “assess your heart” to check wrong impulses and encourage virtuous ones. One note to the instructors reminds them that young scouts are in a sensitive phase of development that should be considered “a launching toward commitment.”
Secular Influences
In the West, the image of Hezbollah is often that of its bearded, young guerrilla fighters, dressed in military camouflage and clutching AK-47s. But Hezbollah’s inner core of fighters and employees — its full-time members — is a far smaller group than its supporters. This broader category, covering the better part of Lebanon’s roughly one million Shiites, includes reservists, who will fight if needed; doctors and engineers, who contribute their skills; and mere sympathizers.
In that sense, a more representative figure of the party’s young following might be someone like Ali al-Sayyed. A quiet, clean-cut 24-year-old, Mr. Sayyed grew up in south Lebanon and now works as an accountant in Beirut. Hezbollah has offered him jobs, but he prefers to maintain his independence.
But his entire life has been lived in the shadow of Hezbollah. He attended a Mustafa high school, one of a national network of schools affiliated with the party, where he spent at least five class hours every week studying religion and listening to his teachers pray for Hezbollah’s fighters and Ayatollah Khomeini. After school and during the summers, he was with the Mahdi Scouts. Later he became a Scout leader.
He is extremely devout — he will not shake hands with women — and mentions his willingness to fight and die for Hezbollah as though it were a matter of course.
“They made us, so of course I would sacrifice my life for them,” he said as he sat gazing through the glass wall of a Beirut cafe on an autumn evening. “Before, the Shiites were in a wretched condition.”
Yet Mr. Sayyed’s generation is also in many ways more exposed to the temptations of Lebanon’s secular and often decadent society than its predecessors.
That shift is apparent even in the Dahiya, or Suburb, the vast enclave on the southern edge of Beirut where most of Lebanon’s Shiites live and where Hezbollah has its headquarters.
Once an austere ghetto where bearded men would chastise women who dared to appear in public without an Islamic head scarf, the Dahiya is now a far more open place. There are Internet cafes, music and DVD shops, Chinese restaurants and an amusement park called Fantasy World. There is no public consumption of alcohol, but the streets are thick with satellite dishes and open-air television sets. Lingerie shops display posters of scantily-clad models in their windows, and young women walk past in tight jeans, their hair uncovered.
The cafe where Mr. Sayyed was sitting, on the outskirts of Dahiya, was typical. Hezbollah banners were visible on the street outside, but on the inside young people sat at aluminum tables sipping cappuccinos, eating doughnuts and listening to their iPods.
“Hezbollah tries to keep the youth living in a religious atmosphere, but they can’t force them,” he said, gazing uneasily at the street outside.
Mr. Sayyed mentioned Rami Olaik, a former Hezbollah firebrand who left the party and this year published a book about his indoctrination and gradual disenchantment. The book recounts Mr. Olaik’s struggle to reconcile his sexual yearnings with the party’s discipline, and his disgust at the way party members manipulated religious doctrine to justify their encounters with prostitutes. Some unmarried Hezbollah members engage in “temporary marriage” to have sexual relationships, an arrangement allowed by some Shiite religious authorities.
Hezbollah officials say they cannot coerce young people, because it would only create rebels like Mr. Olaik. Instead, they leave them largely free in Lebanon’s pluralistic maze, trusting in the power of their religious training.
But there is a limit to Hezbollah’s flexibility. All young members and supporters are encouraged to develop a hiss amni, or security sense, and are warned to beware of curious outsiders, who may be spies.
After Mr. Sayyed had been talking to a foreign journalist in the coffee shop for more than an hour, a hard-looking young man at a neighboring table began staring at him. Suddenly looking nervous, Mr. Sayyed agreed to continue the conversation on the cafe’s second floor. But he seemed agitated, and later he repeatedly postponed another meeting planned for the next week.
Finally, he sent an apologetic e-mail message explaining that he would not be able to meet again.
“As you know, we live in a war with Israel and America,” he wrote in stumbling English, “and they want to war us (destroy) in all the way.” [NYT and Wiki]
--
Abbas and Tufayli
-
Two previous leaders of Hezbollah:
Subhi Tufayli 1989-1991
Sayyed Abbas al-Musawi 1991-1992
----
Tufayli
Shiekh Subhi Al Tufayli is a former secretary-general of Hezbollah. Tufayli was an Islamist ideologue and close follower of Ayatollah Khomeini.
Al-Tufayli spent nine years studying theology in the city of al-Najaf, Iraq, where he met and was influenced by other Islamist clerics and by the teachings of the Ayatollah Khomeini. Returning to Lebanon, he joined with Abbas al-Musawi to help found the Hezbollah movement in the Beqaa Valley in 1985. Beqaa is one of Hezbollah's three main regions of support in Lebanon.
He was the spokesman for Hezbollah between 1985 and 1989, and then first Secretary-General of Hezbollah from 1989 until 1991. In 1992 he was replaced by Sheikh Abbas al-Musawi when Hezbollah decided to participate in national elections Tufaili opposed. He either quit or was expelled from Hezbollah in 1992. Tufaili is now rumored to lead the splinter group Ansar Allah, which is held responsible for attacks in Lebanon, Panama, and Argentina. He has been backed by Syria as a means of challenging Hezbollah leader Nasrallah, who has remained inflexible to Syrian demands.
Tufaili's leadership in Hezbollah
Tufaili has been a stalwart in his opposition to the existence of the state of Israel, telling one funeral audience that `we know that we will not triumph in one or even several years but have prepared for a battle of centuries,` to eliminate Israel.
In July 28 1989 elite Israeli military units abducted Sheikh Abdal-Karim Obeid, a senior Hizballah cleric and regional military commander of the Islamic Resistance, who they hoped to use to negotiate an exchange for several IDF soldiers and Western civilian hostages held by Hezbollah. Under Tufaili's militant leadership however, Hezbollah "remained adamant" in its refusal to release either "any IDF soldiers [or] any Western hostages" it held.
In 1991 or 92 Tufaili lost his job to Abbas al-Musawi. Hezbollah's hostage-taking campaign had wound down since the "Kuwait 17" bombers of the 1983 Kuwait bombings who were connected to leading Hezbollah members were now free, and Taif Agreement had essentially ended the Civil War in Lebanon. Al-Musawi was both head of the military wing and former head of the movement's "internal security apparatus in Beirut," and was thus thought better equipped to lead Hezbollah in its new primary mission of fighting Israel and ending Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon.
Tufaili's activities after leadership
Tufaili left the movement in 1992 in protest over Hezbollah's participation in the parliamentary elections and its "moderation" toward the Lebanese state. Since then he has been active in fighting Hezbollah and the Lebanese government.
In July 1997 he organized protest against government which has been called "hunger revolution". Tufeili said it is "completely unacceptable that a human being could be humiliated because of poverty or because they were in need."
His breakaway group is known as the "Revolution of the Hungry" (Thawrat al-Jiya), although his support base is largely limited to the villages of Brital and Tarayya.
He is wanted by the Lebanese government for leading a revolution against the country, but has not been arrested.
In January 1998 he attempted with his militia to occupy a Hezbollah religious school and touched off a violent confrontation with the Lebanese army. Lebanese authorities issued a warrant for Tufaili's arrest, while Lebanese army units conducted a massive sweep of the Beqaa. According to Lebanon's army statement in 1998:
"Following the decision of the military prosecutor to order the arrest of Sheikh Sobhi Tufaili and his supporters on charges of forming armed groups, endangering national security and killing soldiers and civilians, the army took control of Sheikh Tufaili's house."
In February 1998 Lebanese troops surrounded a village looking for a Tufaili after two days of clashes that left eight people dead. Tufaili and around 100 of his fighters were allowed to escape to his hometown of Britel when the head of Syrian military intelligence in Baalbeck, Col. Ali Safi, stepped in and forced advancing Lebanese army units to halt.
In April 1999, Tufaili's forces overran a Hezbollah arms depot in the village of Nabichit, near Baalbeck, seizing large numbers of machine-guns, rocket-launchers and other military equipment.
He has stated the Hassan Nasrallah implements the agenda of Ali Khamenei of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
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Al Musawi
Abbas al-Musawi (died February 16, 1992) was an influential Muslim cleric and leader of Hezbollah. He was killed by Israeli forces in 1992.
Sayyed al Musawi was born in the village of al-Nabi Shayth in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon, and spent eight years studying theology in a religious school in al-Najaf, Iraq, where he was deeply influenced by the views of Iranian Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. He returned to Lebanon in 1978 and in 1982 along with Subhi al-Tufayli spearheaded the formation of Hezbollah movement and militia in the Beqaa Valley, one of the three major areas of Shia population in Lebanon. From 1983-85 he is reported to have served as operational head of the Hezbollah Special Security Apparatus and from late-1985 until April 1988 was head of Hezbollah's military wing, the Islamic Resistance.
According to some reports, al-Musawi was responsible for the abduction of Lt. Col William Higgins while commander of Hezbollah's Islamic Resistance, (military wing).
By 1991 The Hezbollah had entered a new era with the end of the both the Iran–Iraq War and Lebanese Civil War, the Ta'if agreement and the release of the Kuwait 17 bombers. A new leader was thought to be needed to facilitate the release of the Western hostages held by Hezbollah and more importantly to shift Hezbollah's focus to resistance activity against Israel.
In May 1991, Hezbollah chose Musawi as its secretary-general. As a former head of both the Security Apparatus (considered the instigator of hostage taking) and the military wing of Hezbollah, Musawi was well qualified.
Musawi replaced hard-line Sheikh Subhi al-Tufayli and promised Hezbollah would "wipe out every trace of Israel in Palestine," which he called the "the cancer of the Middle East", and would "intensify its military, political and popular action in order to undermine the peace-talks."
Killing
On February 16, 1992, Israeli Apache helicopters attacked a motorcade in southern Lebanon, killing Musawi, his wife, son, and four others. Israel said the attack had been planned as an assassination attempt. In retaliation, the Islamic Jihad Organization carried out the Israeli Embassy attack in Buenos Aires. Musawi was succeeded as secretary-general of Hezbollah by Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. [wiki]
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Hezbollah Chiefs:
1 Sheikh Ragheb Harb 1983-1989
2 Subhi Tufayli 1989-1991
3 Sayyed Abbas al-Musawi 1991-1992
4 Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah 1992-
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Two previous leaders of Hezbollah:
Subhi Tufayli 1989-1991
Sayyed Abbas al-Musawi 1991-1992
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Tufayli
Shiekh Subhi Al Tufayli is a former secretary-general of Hezbollah. Tufayli was an Islamist ideologue and close follower of Ayatollah Khomeini.
Al-Tufayli spent nine years studying theology in the city of al-Najaf, Iraq, where he met and was influenced by other Islamist clerics and by the teachings of the Ayatollah Khomeini. Returning to Lebanon, he joined with Abbas al-Musawi to help found the Hezbollah movement in the Beqaa Valley in 1985. Beqaa is one of Hezbollah's three main regions of support in Lebanon.
He was the spokesman for Hezbollah between 1985 and 1989, and then first Secretary-General of Hezbollah from 1989 until 1991. In 1992 he was replaced by Sheikh Abbas al-Musawi when Hezbollah decided to participate in national elections Tufaili opposed. He either quit or was expelled from Hezbollah in 1992. Tufaili is now rumored to lead the splinter group Ansar Allah, which is held responsible for attacks in Lebanon, Panama, and Argentina. He has been backed by Syria as a means of challenging Hezbollah leader Nasrallah, who has remained inflexible to Syrian demands.
Tufaili's leadership in Hezbollah
Tufaili has been a stalwart in his opposition to the existence of the state of Israel, telling one funeral audience that `we know that we will not triumph in one or even several years but have prepared for a battle of centuries,` to eliminate Israel.
In July 28 1989 elite Israeli military units abducted Sheikh Abdal-Karim Obeid, a senior Hizballah cleric and regional military commander of the Islamic Resistance, who they hoped to use to negotiate an exchange for several IDF soldiers and Western civilian hostages held by Hezbollah. Under Tufaili's militant leadership however, Hezbollah "remained adamant" in its refusal to release either "any IDF soldiers [or] any Western hostages" it held.
In 1991 or 92 Tufaili lost his job to Abbas al-Musawi. Hezbollah's hostage-taking campaign had wound down since the "Kuwait 17" bombers of the 1983 Kuwait bombings who were connected to leading Hezbollah members were now free, and Taif Agreement had essentially ended the Civil War in Lebanon. Al-Musawi was both head of the military wing and former head of the movement's "internal security apparatus in Beirut," and was thus thought better equipped to lead Hezbollah in its new primary mission of fighting Israel and ending Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon.
Tufaili's activities after leadership
Tufaili left the movement in 1992 in protest over Hezbollah's participation in the parliamentary elections and its "moderation" toward the Lebanese state. Since then he has been active in fighting Hezbollah and the Lebanese government.
In July 1997 he organized protest against government which has been called "hunger revolution". Tufeili said it is "completely unacceptable that a human being could be humiliated because of poverty or because they were in need."
His breakaway group is known as the "Revolution of the Hungry" (Thawrat al-Jiya), although his support base is largely limited to the villages of Brital and Tarayya.
He is wanted by the Lebanese government for leading a revolution against the country, but has not been arrested.
In January 1998 he attempted with his militia to occupy a Hezbollah religious school and touched off a violent confrontation with the Lebanese army. Lebanese authorities issued a warrant for Tufaili's arrest, while Lebanese army units conducted a massive sweep of the Beqaa. According to Lebanon's army statement in 1998:
"Following the decision of the military prosecutor to order the arrest of Sheikh Sobhi Tufaili and his supporters on charges of forming armed groups, endangering national security and killing soldiers and civilians, the army took control of Sheikh Tufaili's house."
In February 1998 Lebanese troops surrounded a village looking for a Tufaili after two days of clashes that left eight people dead. Tufaili and around 100 of his fighters were allowed to escape to his hometown of Britel when the head of Syrian military intelligence in Baalbeck, Col. Ali Safi, stepped in and forced advancing Lebanese army units to halt.
In April 1999, Tufaili's forces overran a Hezbollah arms depot in the village of Nabichit, near Baalbeck, seizing large numbers of machine-guns, rocket-launchers and other military equipment.
He has stated the Hassan Nasrallah implements the agenda of Ali Khamenei of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
----
Al Musawi
Abbas al-Musawi (died February 16, 1992) was an influential Muslim cleric and leader of Hezbollah. He was killed by Israeli forces in 1992.
Sayyed al Musawi was born in the village of al-Nabi Shayth in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon, and spent eight years studying theology in a religious school in al-Najaf, Iraq, where he was deeply influenced by the views of Iranian Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. He returned to Lebanon in 1978 and in 1982 along with Subhi al-Tufayli spearheaded the formation of Hezbollah movement and militia in the Beqaa Valley, one of the three major areas of Shia population in Lebanon. From 1983-85 he is reported to have served as operational head of the Hezbollah Special Security Apparatus and from late-1985 until April 1988 was head of Hezbollah's military wing, the Islamic Resistance.
According to some reports, al-Musawi was responsible for the abduction of Lt. Col William Higgins while commander of Hezbollah's Islamic Resistance, (military wing).
By 1991 The Hezbollah had entered a new era with the end of the both the Iran–Iraq War and Lebanese Civil War, the Ta'if agreement and the release of the Kuwait 17 bombers. A new leader was thought to be needed to facilitate the release of the Western hostages held by Hezbollah and more importantly to shift Hezbollah's focus to resistance activity against Israel.
In May 1991, Hezbollah chose Musawi as its secretary-general. As a former head of both the Security Apparatus (considered the instigator of hostage taking) and the military wing of Hezbollah, Musawi was well qualified.
Musawi replaced hard-line Sheikh Subhi al-Tufayli and promised Hezbollah would "wipe out every trace of Israel in Palestine," which he called the "the cancer of the Middle East", and would "intensify its military, political and popular action in order to undermine the peace-talks."
Killing
On February 16, 1992, Israeli Apache helicopters attacked a motorcade in southern Lebanon, killing Musawi, his wife, son, and four others. Israel said the attack had been planned as an assassination attempt. In retaliation, the Islamic Jihad Organization carried out the Israeli Embassy attack in Buenos Aires. Musawi was succeeded as secretary-general of Hezbollah by Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. [wiki]
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Hezbollah Chiefs:
1 Sheikh Ragheb Harb 1983-1989
2 Subhi Tufayli 1989-1991
3 Sayyed Abbas al-Musawi 1991-1992
4 Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah 1992-
----
Arabs helping Israel
Arabs silent as Israel launches total war on Gaza.
- Top Iraqi Cleric slams Arab silence on Gaza
- Iran: War on Gaza a countdown Israel's destruction
- Hezbollah: Arabs aiding Israel against Palestinians
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Nasrallah condemns Israeli assault, 'Arab collaboration'
Sunday - 28 December 2008, Live TV Broadcast from Beirut, 18:05 GMT
Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah led a chorus of Lebanese condemnations of a massive Israeli air campaign on the blockaded Gaza Strip over the weekend that killed at least 296 Palestinians and wounded hundreds more.
In a live televised address, Nasrallah pointed the finger at Arab regimes for conspiring with Israel against residents of Gaza.
"There is true and full collaboration between certain Arab regimes, especially those who have already signed peace deals with Israel, to crush any form of resistance," he told thousands of Hizbullah supporters in Beirut's southern suburbs.
The Israel-US alliance was trying to impose a "humiliating" settlement on Lebanon, Syria and Palestine, Nasrallah said. "Those Arab regimes are helping the Israelis," he said.
Nasrallah urged "the Egyptian regime specifically to open the Rafah crossing so that aid can flow into Gaza and help Gazans in their struggle."
"We are not asking in any way for Egypt to launch a war against Israel because in Gaza there are men able and ready to fight. All we ask is that Egypt does not exploit the war to put pressure on the Palestinian resistance. If you do not open the crossing, then you are partners in the crime," he said.
The Hizbullah Chief urged all Arabs to protest the Israeli military strikes. All Arabs states should help Gazans to remain steadfast in the face of Israel, he said, because "Israel cannot manage wars of attrition."
Nasrallah also said the Arab world had "the money and enough political power to stop the carnage in Gaza."
Lebanon has to remain vigilant of a possible Israeli attack, Nasrallah added, calling for a mass rally at 3 p.m. on Monday in Beirut's southern suburbs.
Israel launched on Saturday what it referred to as "calculated" air strikes against Hamas, the Islamist group which runs the strip, just days after a six-month cease-fire with Palestinian resistance groups expired.
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Hezbollah Chief: 'Arab nations cooperating with Israel'
Leader of Hezbollah Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah attacked Arab nations - particularly Egypt and Jordan - in a televised speech Sunday and accused them of cooperation with Israel in its offensive in the Gaza Strip.
"There are some who speak of Arab silence, but this is wrong. There is full Arab cooperation, especially by those who have signed so-called peace agreements with Israel," Nasrallah said.
The Hizbullah leader called on Arabs everywhere to go out into the streets and demonstrate, in order to force their governments to stop the Israeli offensive.
Nasrallah condemned Egypt for casting the responsibility of the condition in Gaza on Hamas.
He attacked Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit, who in a Saturday press conference said that Hamas, which had been repeatedly warned by Egypt, must bear responsibility for the current situation in Gaza.
"Yesterday, we heard a high-ranking Egyptian leader cast the responsibility on the victim. Can we accept such things from Arabs? Casting the responsibility for this war on the Gaza resistance is embarrassing and saddening," Nasrallah added. "Our nations call on Egypt to help."
Nasrallah said that Israel needed such action on "an electoral level and to salvage the image of the Israeli army." But, he added, "We are not concerned or afraid... We are ready to face any attack on our country."
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Nasrallah slams "Arab-Zionist collaboration"
Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hezbollah, has condemned the Israeli massacre of Gazans and points to the role of certain Arab regimes in conspiring with Israel.
Addressing a large crowd of Lebanese people, Nasrallah said it is very unfortunate to begin the new Islamic year at a time where a huge humanitarian catastrophe has led to the martyrdom of over 300 innocent people and the injuring of over 1,000 in the Gaza Strip by Israel tanks and air strikes.
He said Gazans have two options - Resistance or humiliating surrender - and they are resisting with perseverance.
Nasrallah likened the air strikes on Gaza to the 33-day war in the summer of 2006 that killed more than 1,200 people in Lebanon, most of them civilians.
But he said the situation of Palestinians is worse than the 2006 Israeli war with Lebanon.
"What is going on in Gaza right now is in a very clear way a permanent American and Israeli scheme in the region to impose a humiliating settlement with Israeli and American conditions on the rest of the Arabs. The Americans and the Zionists want a settlement for the Arab-Israeli conflict. They want it in their own form with their own conditions. The Palestinians, the Lebanese and the Syrians must give in to these conditions according to their plan. The Americans and the Zionists are putting their efforts to impose their conditions through pressure, isolation, blockades, internal divisions, assassinations and so on."
Meanwhile he pointed to the negative role of some Arab countries in what was happening in Gaza and said, "There are some Arab regimes who are truly partners of this project, especially those who signed peace treaties with Israel. They are supporting (the US-Israeli project) politically, psychologically, militarily and culturally through the media… They are contributing to impose the conditions of surrender on the rest of the resistance groups."
Nasrallah said that there are documents that show that some Arab regimes are calling on Israel to destroy Hamas and the Islamic Jihad.
He said he had heard today from some Israeli officials that the magnitude of Arab support for the destruction of the resistance in Gaza is even more than their support to destroy Hezbollah.
The Secretary General also said that certain Arab countries are responsible for some of the internal fighting among Palestinian factions. "These same Arabs armed the Palestinian factions to fight against each other."
He made it clear that the resistance in Palestine and Gaza would keep on saying that "Today the people of Gaza have made their choice - the choice of blood. They are resisting with firmness. Nothing will prevent them, without even anybody's help, from continuing with their resistance, despite bloodshed and martyrdom."
Nasrallah meanwhile criticized Arab media saying, "Some of these Arab satellite channels, which we can call them Hebrew channels and not Arab channels, were showing people in Gaza killed yesterday and today as like somebody killed in some traffic accident in India. Then they show the news going back to normal as if there is no Arab humanitarian catastrophe happening in Gaza."
"We as an Ummah, a nation, must work together to stop this Zionist campaign. We must work in order for this assault not to achieve its aims. We should be able to achieve victory in Gaza although there will be sacrifices of a huge magnitude".
"It is not only the responsibility of the people of Gaza, it is the responsibility of the governments in Arab and Islamic nations. It is the responsibility of the peoples to bring pressure on their governments, which remained silent, to take steps. There is no justification at all for the people to say we have regimes of oppression. We must go out into the streets and raise our voices, put pressure on our governments even if fire was opened on our chests. This is our duty, and who ever falls in this duty on the road to al-Quds is a martyr."
"In this period the United States of America and the Europeans are suffering from financial and economic crisis. But we in the Arab world, we have oil, we have money, we have political stands, our governments and regimes with very little effort, can very easily stop the Zionist assault on the people in Gaza," he said.
Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah strongly criticized the Egyptian government and added, "All of these Arab and Islamic people must head to the streets and call on the Egyptian government. The Egyptian position is the corner-stone in what is going on in Gaza. Nobody has called on Egypt to take up arms and go to war. We are only asking them to open their borders so that food, medicine and water can reach our people in Gaza."
"The Egyptian regime must politically help the people of Gaza so that the assault can be stopped without any preconditions. This is the Egyptian responsibility. The people of the Arab and Islamic world must call on the Egyptian regime to open the borders".
Nasrallah appreciated Syria's role in the 2006 Israeli war on Lebanon and asked for the same from Egypt. "
Syria had opened the borders for us although Israel bombarded the Lebanon-Syria border, and we thanked Syria for it. We are calling on Egypt now to open the Rafah border permanently for those who are alive, not only for those who are injured or martyred."
"We must tell Egypt very strongly this time that if you do not open the Rafah crossing to Gaza people, it means that you are partners in this siege and collaborating with the Israeli regime in the killing of innocent Palestinians. The Egyptian people must pour out into the streets in millions to force their government to open the country's border with the Gaza Strip. If the people took to the streets by the millions, could the police kill millions of Egyptians?"
The Hezbollah leader said that if Egypt did not open the Rafah Crossing to Gaza, it would be considered a partner in the Israeli killing of Palestinians.
He emphasized that if Egypt opens the Rafah crossing and food, water and money reach the people in Gaza, a repetition of what happened in Lebanon would occur. "
Although we are confident of this victory, the people of Gaza are living in hard conditions, and if Gaza stays on its feet, and shows perseverance, the assault will end. Israel cannot stand a long and exhausting war. This enemy will be obliged in the end to stop its assault and its goals will be cancelled."
Lastly, he reminded that Lebanon should remain vigilant to a possible Israeli attack saying, "I have asked the brothers in the resistance, in the south specifically, to be present, on alert and cautious because we are facing a criminal enemy and we don't know the magnitude of its conspiracies."
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Iran: "Final count down" starts for Israel's collapse
The final count down has started for the collapse of the Zionist regime, Iranian government spokesman, Gholam-Hossein Elham said on Monday.
Speaking on the sidelines of a large rally held to protest the ongoing slaughter of the defenseless people in Gaza Strip by the Zionist regime, the spokesman said that Israel has "waged a war not only against the innocent Gazans but against the whole humanity."
"This is a battle not only in the Islamic lands but in the whole world and its threats would possibly spill over even to Europe," Elham said.
Elham said that Israel's savage attacks on Gaza Strip resulted from its increasing desperation regarding its weakness in the face of Palestinians public resistance.
"Bombarding defenseless women and children can no longer save the Zionist entity," said the spokesman. He also condemned the international community for their silence towards Israeli crimes.
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Sistani condemns Arab inaction on Gaza
Top Iraqi cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has called for decisive action by Arab states for an end to Israeli attacks on Gaza.
"Condemning what is going on in Gaza and supporting our brothers only with words is meaningless, considering the big tragedy they are facing,''
Sistani said in a statement released by his office in Najaf: "Arab and Islamic nations need to take a decisive stance, now more than ever, to end these ongoing aggressions and to break the unjust siege imposed on the brave people of Gaza."
Israeli air forces staged massive airstrikes against the Gaza strip on Saturday and Sunday, killing more than 300 people and injuring 1550 others.
Arab government's reaction, however, was similar to the stance they took after Israel attacked Lebanon in the summer of 2006.
Despite their condemnations, Israeli officials later revealed that some influential Arabs states had supported their attack on Lebanon as it was launched with the aim of destroying the country's resistance movement of Hezbollah.
Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called on the Muslim world to defend the people of Gaza.
"All Muslims are obliged to defend the defenseless people of Gaza in any way they can; those killed on such a sacred path are indeed martyrs.”
Khamenei slammed the collaboration of Washington and Tel Aviv, the silence of international bodies, and the indifference shown by some Arab countries which have paved the ground for such atrocities.
"Surely the Egyptian and Jordanian nations and other Muslims feel furious over these killings that follow the long-time blockade which banned food and medicine deliveries to Gaza."
Media reports suggest Cairo helped Tel Aviv mislead Hamas officials about Israel's intention to attack the impoverished region.
Egyptian Intelligence Minister Omar Suleiman had deceived Hamas into believing that Israel would not launch an attack on the Gaza Strip in the near future.
According to the reports, the misinformation prevented Hamas from evacuating its security compounds and headquarters.
Meanwhile on Sunday, the UN Security Council failed to pass a resolution demanding an end to the Israeli attacks, as the United States vetoed the motion, which was requested by members of the United Nations.
Since 1972, Tel Aviv's staunch ally the United States, has vetoed over 40 resolutions the council has tried to pass against the Israeli regime.
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Editorial:
Hamas has been around for years. It regulary fires home made missiles into Israel. Israeli casulties are very low. Even if are to believe Israel's own figures, they amount to no more than 5 dead in the whole of 2008. Of cource, one is one too many. But we should consider the timing of Israeli assault on Gaza. Israel has only decided to go to war in Gaza at this time in order to prevent President Obama from talking to Iran - its mortal enemy. During his presidential campaign Barak Obama had vowed to hold unconditional talks with the Islamic Republic. America having a dialogue with Iran is something that Arabs dictators also do not want to see. Arabs feel threatened by Washington's peace a move with Tehran. They want to end Persian, and, especially its Shia brand of revolutionay Islam from gaining influence in the Arab world. For past five years Arab leaders spoke of a "Shia Crescent" rising over their domain. Israeli leaders have since 2004 been playing on the fears of shi'ites among Arabs. The west has also played part in this. Led by Tony Blair, the former British Prime Minister who visted Arab capitals and helped by fueling Arabs anxieties. He often spoke about Hezbollah and its "shi'ite allies" in Tehran. President Bush has even spoke of a "facist ideology" emerging in Lebanon during Israel's war on the country, clearly a reference towards Hezbollah's Shia faith. There was hope that once frightened, Arabs would help settle the Israel-Palestine conflict. Naturally, therefore, we witness the Salafist/Wahhabi Islam in cooperation with Zionists - a state still not recognised by most Arabs countries. Arab leaders are now seen accepting a lesser evil in a fight for survival. Hence, the recent deadly assault on Gaza seems to be both political and religious. Israel and Arabs aiming to finish their mutual foes. War on Gaza is launched as a diversion tactic by Israel. Israel is out to finish one enemy, and to derail the attempt by its friend to make peace with another. President Shimon Peres has been desperately trying to get Washington to postpone talks with Iran. He urged U.S. to delay talks with Iran until June 2009, the date of Iranian presidential elections.
Monday, 22 December 2008
Hezbollah won't disarm
British journalist Donald Mactintyre reports from the victory rally by Hezbollah in Beirut.
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Hizbollah leader refuses to disarm in 'victory' speech
By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem
The Independent - Saturday, 23 September 2006
Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hizbollah, said in a triumphalist speech to a rally of several hundred thousand people that "no army in the world" would be able to disarm its forces.
And in a direct warning to the Western-supported government of Lebanon, he called for a new "unity government" and declared that the administration of the Prime Minister, Fouad Siniora, was "unable to protect Lebanon, or to reconstruct Lebanon or to unify Lebanon." He said Hizbollah would only consider giving up its weapons when a "strong, capable and just government" was in place.
He insisted that Hizbollah - whose infrastructure, the Israeli government has argued, was severely eroded by the conflict - had emerged from the war stronger than it had been before it. "[It] has recovered all its organisational and military capabilities," he said. "It is stronger than it was before 12 July."
"There is no army in the world that can [force us] to drop our weapons from our hands, from our grip," he told the rally in the southern suburbs of Beirut. "Today we celebrate a great divine, historic and strategic victory."
While Israeli officials have said they would continue to target Hizbollah's leadership, the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's administration appears to have decided to make no attempt to assassinate him in such circumstances.
The former Lebanese president, Amin Gemayel, a sharp critic of Hizbollah, said parts of the speech were "dangerous". He said that Mr Nasrallah - whose victory pronouncements have also been sharply criticised by the Ali Al-Amin, the Shia mufti in the southern Lebanese city of Tyre - was "linking giving up Hizbollah's weapons to regime change in Lebanon and ... to drastic changes on the level of the Lebanese government".
Mr Gemayel added: "This is very surprising and dangerous, and leads us to ask, what kind of government does [Mr Nasrallah] want for what kind of Lebanon?" He said Mr Nasrallah, on the one hand, "extended his hand" to various Lebanese parties but, on the other hand, was "confrontational and made some very serious statements". A laconic statement issued by the prime minister's office said only that it welcomed the focus on the dialogue as a "good and constructive thing and opens future horizons".
Mark Regev, a spokesman for Israel's Foreign Ministry, said: "The international community can't afford to have this Iranian-funded extremist spit in the face of the organised community of nations."
In response to Hizbollah's claim to still have more than 20,000 rockets, Mr Regev said that, according to the United Nations-backed ceasefire, Hizbollah "shouldn't have any rockets".
Faris Soueid, a Christian politician close to Mr Saniora, insisted on Al-Arabiya television that the government would not bend to Hizbollah pressure. "I believe it will not scare the government of Fouad Saniora, It will not fall, not in the street and not because of political speeches."
Meanwhile, Ismail Haniyeh, the Palestinian Prime Minister, said he would not lead a "national unity" Palestinian Authority which recognised Israel. But he said Hamas was ready to establish a Palestinian state including the territory seized by Israel in the Six-Day War and would offer a long term ceasefire to Israel. Mr Haniyeh's remarks appeared to contradict the statement in New York by Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, earlier that the Palestinian factions would form a coalition government that would recognise Israel.
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Hizbollah leader refuses to disarm in 'victory' speech
By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem
The Independent - Saturday, 23 September 2006
Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hizbollah, said in a triumphalist speech to a rally of several hundred thousand people that "no army in the world" would be able to disarm its forces.
And in a direct warning to the Western-supported government of Lebanon, he called for a new "unity government" and declared that the administration of the Prime Minister, Fouad Siniora, was "unable to protect Lebanon, or to reconstruct Lebanon or to unify Lebanon." He said Hizbollah would only consider giving up its weapons when a "strong, capable and just government" was in place.
He insisted that Hizbollah - whose infrastructure, the Israeli government has argued, was severely eroded by the conflict - had emerged from the war stronger than it had been before it. "[It] has recovered all its organisational and military capabilities," he said. "It is stronger than it was before 12 July."
"There is no army in the world that can [force us] to drop our weapons from our hands, from our grip," he told the rally in the southern suburbs of Beirut. "Today we celebrate a great divine, historic and strategic victory."
While Israeli officials have said they would continue to target Hizbollah's leadership, the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's administration appears to have decided to make no attempt to assassinate him in such circumstances.
The former Lebanese president, Amin Gemayel, a sharp critic of Hizbollah, said parts of the speech were "dangerous". He said that Mr Nasrallah - whose victory pronouncements have also been sharply criticised by the Ali Al-Amin, the Shia mufti in the southern Lebanese city of Tyre - was "linking giving up Hizbollah's weapons to regime change in Lebanon and ... to drastic changes on the level of the Lebanese government".
Mr Gemayel added: "This is very surprising and dangerous, and leads us to ask, what kind of government does [Mr Nasrallah] want for what kind of Lebanon?" He said Mr Nasrallah, on the one hand, "extended his hand" to various Lebanese parties but, on the other hand, was "confrontational and made some very serious statements". A laconic statement issued by the prime minister's office said only that it welcomed the focus on the dialogue as a "good and constructive thing and opens future horizons".
Mark Regev, a spokesman for Israel's Foreign Ministry, said: "The international community can't afford to have this Iranian-funded extremist spit in the face of the organised community of nations."
In response to Hizbollah's claim to still have more than 20,000 rockets, Mr Regev said that, according to the United Nations-backed ceasefire, Hizbollah "shouldn't have any rockets".
Faris Soueid, a Christian politician close to Mr Saniora, insisted on Al-Arabiya television that the government would not bend to Hizbollah pressure. "I believe it will not scare the government of Fouad Saniora, It will not fall, not in the street and not because of political speeches."
Meanwhile, Ismail Haniyeh, the Palestinian Prime Minister, said he would not lead a "national unity" Palestinian Authority which recognised Israel. But he said Hamas was ready to establish a Palestinian state including the territory seized by Israel in the Six-Day War and would offer a long term ceasefire to Israel. Mr Haniyeh's remarks appeared to contradict the statement in New York by Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, earlier that the Palestinian factions would form a coalition government that would recognise Israel.
Hezbollah not terrorists
British journalist Robert Fisk discusses Washington's favourate label for Hezbollah.
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Robert Fisk: Please spare me the word 'terrorist'
Lebanon is a good place to find out what tosh the 'terror' merchants talk
The Independent - Saturday, 3 February 2007
So it was back to terror, terror, terror this week. The "terrorist" Hizbollah was trying to destroy the "democratically elected government" of Fouad Siniora in Lebanon. The "terrorist" Hamas government cannot rule Palestine. Iranian "terrorists" in Iraq are going to be gunned down by US troops.My favourite line of the week came from the "security source" - just how one becomes a "security source" remains a mystery to me -- who announced: "Terrorists are always looking for new ways to strike terror... There is no end of the possibilities where terrorists can try to cause terror to the public." Well, you could have fooled me.
Lebanon is as good a place as any to find out what a load of old tosh the "terror" merchants talk. For here it is that the hydra-headed monster of Iran is supposedly stalking the streets of Beirut, staging a coup against Mr Siniora and his ministers.
Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, the Hizbollah leader, is the man Israel spent all last summer trying - vainly, of course - to kill, his black-bearded, turbaned appearance on Hizbollah's own TV station a source of fury to both Ehud Olmert and - nowadays - to Siniora's men in government.
Now it's true that Nasrallah - an intelligent, former military commander of Hizbollah in southern Lebanon - is developing a rather odd cult of personality. His massive features tower over the Beirut airport highway, a giant hand waving at motorists in both directions. And these days, you can buy Hizbollah T-shirts and Nasrallah key chains. But somehow "terror" is not quite the word that comes to mind.
This is partly because the tens of thousands of Shia Muslims whom Hizbollah represents are staging a social revolution rather than a coup, a mass uprising of the poor who have traditionally been ignored by the great and the good of Lebanese society.
The men in their tent city downtown are a powerful symbol in Lebanon. They are smoking their hooker pipes and playing cards and sleeping rough next to the shining new city which Rafiq Hariri rebuilt from the ruins of Beirut - a city to impress foreigners but one in which the south Lebanese poor could not afford to buy a cup of coffee.
Hariri's theory - or at least this is how he explained it to me before his murder - was that if the centre of Beirut was reconstructed, the money which it generated would trickle down to the rest of Lebanon.
But it didn't trickle. The bright lights of downtown Beirut were enjoyed by the rich and purchased by the Saudis and admired by the likes of Jacques Chirac but they were not for the Shia. For them, Hizbollah provided the social services and the economic foundation of its part of Lebanon as well as the military spearhead to strike at Israel and demand the return of Shebaa Farms.
The Lebanese government may have its troops mixed in with the new UN force in the south but no one doubts that Hizbollah remain in their villages, as powerful and as influential as ever.
Harirism, it seems, failed and now Hariri's old friend Siniora - who, by the way, was never elected (he was appointed to the prime minister's job although you'd never know if from watching Western television) - has returned from Paris with millions of dollars to sit once more in his little "green zone", surrounded by barbed wire and soldiers and, outside the gates of his serail, by the poor of southern Lebanon and the suburbs of Beirut.
Hizbollah's electoral partners are also interesting. General Michel Aoun - whom the Americans have not yet got round to calling a "terrorist" - is the Christian leader who allows Nasrallah to claim that the opposition is non-sectarian. Aoun's supporters were involved in pitched battles with Samir Geagea's Phalangists last week and what was striking was how poor many of Aoun's Christian supporters also appeared to be. Indeed, Aoun was himself born in the same southern slums of Beirut which is Hizbollah's power base and his constant refrain - that the government is corrupt - is beginning to take hold among the disenfranchised Christian communities in the east of Beirut.
The fact that Aoun is also a little cracked does not change this. Even when this week he produced a doctored photograph supposedly showing an armed Phalangist on the streets - the image was of a Hizbollah gunman, originally taken during last summer's war but stuck on to a photograph of crowds on a north Beirut roadway - his loyal supporters did not desert him. Nestling beside their tents in central Beirut are canvas homes containing Lebanese communists - how friendly the old hammer and sickle seems these days - and a host of lesser groups which may or may not come under Syria's patronage.
Of course, the crisis in Lebanon is also about Iran and Syria, especially Iran's determination to damage or destroy any Middle East government which has earned America's friendship. In the growing, overheated drama being played out between Washington and Tehran (and Israel, of course), Lebanon is another board game for the two sides to use. America thus lined up to defend Lebanon's democracy - though it didn't care a damn about it when Israel bombarded the country last summer - while Iran continues to support Hizbollah whose government ministers resigned last year, provoking the current crisis.
Nasrallah is said to have been personally shocked by the extent of the violence and hatred manifested in last week's miniature civil war in which both Sunni and Shia Muslims used guns against each other for the first time.
But they too emerged from the slums to do battle with their co-religionists and I rather suspect that - when this latest conflict is over - there will have to be a serious evaluation of the explosive nature of Lebanon's poverty belts, a re-examination of a country whose super-wealthy launder the money which never reaches the poor, whose French restaurants and Italian designer shops are for the princes of the Gulf, whose government - however democratically elected (and Washington still doesn't seem to understand that sectarian politics mean that Lebanon cannot have a normal democracy) - seems so out of touch with its largest religious community.
But as the story of Lebanon continues, please spare me the word "terrorist".
Iran takes Beirut
British journalist reports on the week Iran took Beirut from U.S. backed Government in Lebanon.
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Robert Fisk: Gun battles as Hizbollah claims Lebanon is at war
The Independent - Friday, 9 May 2008
If you want to fight us, you'll have to fight us. This was Sayed Hassan Nasrallah's message to the Lebanese government yesterday and his words were followed within seconds by two massive gun battles in the streets of Beirut.
He had spoken in that careful, thought-through, distressing way in which he always threatens the Hizbollah's enemies. He even swapped the names of the Lebanese Prime Minister, Fouad Siniora, with that of the Druze leader Walid Jumblatt – calling Jumblatt the real prime minister and Siniora his deputy – and blamed both for trying to set up a CIA-Mossad base at Beirut airport. What other reason could there be, he asked, for the two men to demand the dismantlement of Hizbollah's communications system and the suspension of the head of airport security? This was "a Lebanese government declaration of war against the resistance". Well, maybe. But Nasrallah still wants the Hizbollah's enemies to be the Israelis – not his Lebanese opponents.
So what happened in the minutes after he spoke? At least one Shia Amal gunman started shooting at an office belonging to Sunni supporters of the government, some of whom may have been the youths apparently brought down from Tripoli for just such a battle. The Lebanese army was not fully engaged on the streets last night but its armoured vehicles were driving between the sectarian interfaces and apparently taking fire from both sides.
It was a dark and distressing speech by the secretary general of Hizbollah, which came less than 24 hours after the Grand Mufti, Mohammed Kabbani, furiously referred to the Hizbollah as "armed gangs of outlaws that have carried out the ugliest attacks against the citizens and their safety". Needless to say, neither Nasrallah nor Kabbani stated the obvious – that the first represents a large number of the Shia Muslim community and the second most of the Sunnis.
The sectarian background to this dangerous game is the point, of course. The street battles in Beirut are between Shia and Sunni, the first supporting the Iranian-armed Hizbollah, the second the Lebanese government, which now regularly carries the sobriquet "American-backed". In other words, the collapse of Beirut these past two days is part of the American-Iranian conflict – even though, be sure, the Americans will blame the Hizbollah for this and the Iranians will blame the Americans.
Yet still the language of Nasrallah – like that of Kabbani – was frightening, even though he had behind him the national flag of Lebanon with its green cedar tree as well as Hizbollah's own yellow banner. To call Jumblatt "a liar, a thief, a killer..." – though this view might be heartily reciprocated by Jumblatt himself – is language that puts Lebanese in danger of their lives.
Nasrallah's complaint that the suspension of Wafiq Chucair as head of airport security was part of an American-Israeli plot might sound a bit much, but his long and point-by-point insistence that Hizbollah should maintain its new communications links – including its cameras along the Beirut airport perimeter – was perhaps more reasoned, albeit that it helps allow his organisation to remain part of a state with the state. Wireless communications can easily be tapped, he said, and he added that new communications were the "most powerful tool" in Hizbollah's 2006 war against Israel.
Nasrallah intriguingly pointed out that Siniora's government had previously told the Hizbollah that it would allow the secure communications circuits to remain if the movement closed down its largely empty "tent city" in the centre of Beirut. Indeed, it has largely been in place for more than a year. Hizbollah had no argument with the Lebanese army – a view that might not be shared by General Michel Sulaiman, its commander, who stated yesterday that the situation is "threatening the army's impartiality".
All of which continues Lebanon's crisis. Beirut airport remained largely empty of aircraft yesterday – the Christian daily L'Orient Le Jour rightly suggested that it had been taken hostage by Hizbollah, who control all roads to the terminal – and there were brief gun battles between government and opposition supporters in the Bekaa Valley town of Saadnayel. Yet again, burning tyres were set up in areas demarcating Shia and Sunni districts, and the army closed the Corniche Mazraa highway, which divides west Beirut. By last night it was the scene of a gun battle. Kuwait urged its citizens to leave Lebanon – without being obliging enough to tell them exactly how to perform this task without an airport.
Robert Fisk: Hizbollah rules west Beirut in Iran's proxy war with U.S.
The Independent - Saturday, 10 May 2008
Another American humiliation. The Shia gunmen who drove past my apartment in west Beirut yesterday afternoon were hooting their horns, making V-signs, leaning out of the windows of SUVs with their rifles in the air, proving to the Muslims of the capital that the elected government of Lebanon has lost.
And it has. The national army still patrols the streets, but solely to prevent sectarian killings or massacres. Far from dismantling the pro-Iranian Hizbollah's secret telecommunications system – and disarming the Hizbollah itself – the cabinet of Fouad Siniora sits in the old Turkish serail in Beirut, denouncing violence with the same authority as the Iraqi government in Baghdad's green zone.
The Lebanese army watches the Hizbollah road-blocks. And does nothing. As a Tehran versus Washington conflict, Iran has won, at least for now. Walid Jumblatt, the Druze leader and MP and a pro-American supporter of Mr Siniora's government, is isolated in his home in west Beirut, but has not been harmed. The same applies to Saad Hariri, one of the most prominent government MPs and the son of the murdered former prime minister Rafik Hariri. He remains in his west Beirut palace in Koreitem, guarded by police and soldiers but unable to move without Hizbollah's approval. The symbolism is everything.
When Hamas became part of the Palestinian government, the West rejected it. So Hamas took over Gaza. When the Hizbollah became part of the Lebanese government, the Americans rejected it. Now Hizbollah has taken over west Beirut. The parallels are not exact, of course.
Hamas won a convincing electoral victory. Hizbollah was a minority in the Lebanese government; its withdrawal from cabinet seats with other Shias was occasioned by Mr Siniora's American-defined policies and by their own electoral inability to change these. The Lebanese don't want an Islamic republic any more than the Palestinians. But when Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, the Hizbollah chairman, told a press conference that this was a "new era" for Lebanon, he meant what he said.
Mr Hariri's Future Television offices were invested by the army after Hizbollah surrounded it on Thursday night, its staff evacuated and the station switched off. When I turned up there yesterday morning, I joined a queue for manouche – Lebanon's hot cheese breakfast sandwiches – at Eyman's bakery in Watwat Street. I patiently waited behind four black-hooded gunmen from Hizbollah's allied (but highly venal) Amal movement only to find uniformed Lebanese soldiers representing the government patiently queuing at the next window. Law and disorder, it seems, both have to eat.
But I found far more powerful symbolism in Hamra Street, one of west Beirut's two main commercial thoroughfares. More than 100 Hizbollah men were standing or patrolling the highway, clad in new camouflage fatigues, wearing new black flak jackets and new black, peaked, American-style baseball caps and – more to the point – what appeared to be equally new American sniper rifles..
No, this is not a revolution. No, this is not a "hijacking" of west Beirut or the airport, which remains cut off by burning tyres on roads guarded by Hizbollah militiamen. But the government's supporters deserve some space. Several pointed out that the Israelis closed Beirut airport in 2006. So what right did Hizbollah have to do the same to the Lebanese now? And, according to Saad Hariri, Mr Nasrallah – when he called Mr Jumblatt "a thief and a killer" – was "authorising his murder and clearly stating that, 'I am the state and the state is me'." No wonder, then, that Mr Jumblatt fears for his life and that Mr Hariri claims the Hizbollah's coup de folie is a form of fitna, the Arabic for chaos. "I invite you, Sayed Nasrallah, to take back your fighters from the streets and to lift the siege of Beirut to protect the unity of Muslims," he said. "Israel will be rejoicing at the blockade of the country and the collapse of its economy."
Marwan Hamade, Mr Siniora's Telecommunications Minister – and victim of an attempted assassination in 2004 – admitted he had turned a blind eye to Hizbollah's underground phone system but could no longer when he realised that Hizbollah now maintains 99,000 numbered lines.
Mr Nasrallah also insisted on the reinstallation of Brigadier General Wafiq Chucair as head of security at Beirut airport, since he was not a member of Hizbollah. General Chucair was suspended after Mr Jumblatt claimed he worked for Mr Nasrallah's outfit, a demand which prompted Mr Jumblatt to say he did not know General Chucair was so important to Mr Nasrallah that it was worth closing the international airport.
And so it goes on. There was an unusually good editorial in the French-language daily L'Orient Le Jour, which asked how the Hizbollah – literally "the party of God" in Arabic – could have war as its raison d'etre yet be a factor of stability and security in Lebanese domestic affairs. "And this party, can it really call itself the 'Party of God' without creating, in the long term, the distrust of all those other children who count themselves to be from the same unique and one God?"
No, this is not a civil war. Nor is it a coup d'etat, though it meets some of the criteria. It is part of the war against America in the Middle East. The Hizbollah "must stop sowing trouble," the White House said rather meekly. Yes, like the Taliban. And al-Qa'ida. And the Iraqi insurgents. And Hamas. And who else?
--
Editorial:
A tool of foreign ambitions
The Independent - Tuesday, 13 May 2008
After more than 30 years of civil war, invasion and conflict, you might have thought that the poor people of Lebanon deserved a period of peace and reconstruction. It is apparently not to be. First came the Israeli invasion of 2006 and now comes the sudden falter of violence between Shia and pro-government forces over the weekend.
True the first flares appeared to have died down by yesterday, at least in Beirut. But there were ominous signs of the fighting spreading as Druze and Hizbollah engaged in running battles in the mountains north of Tripoli. And, while both sides seem to have accepted the imposition of the army, at least in the main parts, there are few who believe that this is anything other than a moments pause in a conflict for power which is very far from being resolved. Indeed there remain many who fear that the underlying quarrel for pre-eminence among the different religious groups cannot be resolved without an out-and-out conflict in which one side or the other emerges as victor.
It can only be hoped that this is not so, or rather it need not be. That the various factions are intent on pursuing their aims by whatever means possible should not be doubted. The Shia forces of Hizbollah, newly triumphant from their battles with the Israeli invaders, demand a greater say in government than the old constitution allows. The Christian and Druze-backed government insist that Hizbollah be disarmed before it can be integrated into civil society. And overhanging it all is the still unresolved issue of the assassination of Rafik Hariri and Syria's responsibility for it.
But then that is the problem of Lebanon, as so much of the Middle East. Its fate is to be the constant tool of the ambitions of others. Hizbollah has the backing of Iran, which sees its rise as a means of furthering its own interests in the region, and Syria, which views Hizbollah as a means of maintaining its influence in the Lebanon. The government has the support of the US together with Israel, which view the defeat of Hizbollah as a way of combating Iran's influence, and Saudi Arabia, which sees Lebanon as a front line in the fight between Shia and Sunni. Even the Arab League is tainted by the commitment of the Saudis and Egyptians to one side rather than the other.
Lebanon will never achieve peace until outsiders stop meddling in it for their own purposes and until the factions within the country achieve their own accommodation. If the latest outbreak serves to concentrate minds for fear of total civil war, it will have served a purpose. If it proves to be just a forerunner of violence ahead, then the Lebanese have indeed cause to despair.
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Robert Fisk: Gun battles as Hizbollah claims Lebanon is at war
The Independent - Friday, 9 May 2008
If you want to fight us, you'll have to fight us. This was Sayed Hassan Nasrallah's message to the Lebanese government yesterday and his words were followed within seconds by two massive gun battles in the streets of Beirut.
He had spoken in that careful, thought-through, distressing way in which he always threatens the Hizbollah's enemies. He even swapped the names of the Lebanese Prime Minister, Fouad Siniora, with that of the Druze leader Walid Jumblatt – calling Jumblatt the real prime minister and Siniora his deputy – and blamed both for trying to set up a CIA-Mossad base at Beirut airport. What other reason could there be, he asked, for the two men to demand the dismantlement of Hizbollah's communications system and the suspension of the head of airport security? This was "a Lebanese government declaration of war against the resistance". Well, maybe. But Nasrallah still wants the Hizbollah's enemies to be the Israelis – not his Lebanese opponents.
So what happened in the minutes after he spoke? At least one Shia Amal gunman started shooting at an office belonging to Sunni supporters of the government, some of whom may have been the youths apparently brought down from Tripoli for just such a battle. The Lebanese army was not fully engaged on the streets last night but its armoured vehicles were driving between the sectarian interfaces and apparently taking fire from both sides.
It was a dark and distressing speech by the secretary general of Hizbollah, which came less than 24 hours after the Grand Mufti, Mohammed Kabbani, furiously referred to the Hizbollah as "armed gangs of outlaws that have carried out the ugliest attacks against the citizens and their safety". Needless to say, neither Nasrallah nor Kabbani stated the obvious – that the first represents a large number of the Shia Muslim community and the second most of the Sunnis.
The sectarian background to this dangerous game is the point, of course. The street battles in Beirut are between Shia and Sunni, the first supporting the Iranian-armed Hizbollah, the second the Lebanese government, which now regularly carries the sobriquet "American-backed". In other words, the collapse of Beirut these past two days is part of the American-Iranian conflict – even though, be sure, the Americans will blame the Hizbollah for this and the Iranians will blame the Americans.
Yet still the language of Nasrallah – like that of Kabbani – was frightening, even though he had behind him the national flag of Lebanon with its green cedar tree as well as Hizbollah's own yellow banner. To call Jumblatt "a liar, a thief, a killer..." – though this view might be heartily reciprocated by Jumblatt himself – is language that puts Lebanese in danger of their lives.
Nasrallah's complaint that the suspension of Wafiq Chucair as head of airport security was part of an American-Israeli plot might sound a bit much, but his long and point-by-point insistence that Hizbollah should maintain its new communications links – including its cameras along the Beirut airport perimeter – was perhaps more reasoned, albeit that it helps allow his organisation to remain part of a state with the state. Wireless communications can easily be tapped, he said, and he added that new communications were the "most powerful tool" in Hizbollah's 2006 war against Israel.
Nasrallah intriguingly pointed out that Siniora's government had previously told the Hizbollah that it would allow the secure communications circuits to remain if the movement closed down its largely empty "tent city" in the centre of Beirut. Indeed, it has largely been in place for more than a year. Hizbollah had no argument with the Lebanese army – a view that might not be shared by General Michel Sulaiman, its commander, who stated yesterday that the situation is "threatening the army's impartiality".
All of which continues Lebanon's crisis. Beirut airport remained largely empty of aircraft yesterday – the Christian daily L'Orient Le Jour rightly suggested that it had been taken hostage by Hizbollah, who control all roads to the terminal – and there were brief gun battles between government and opposition supporters in the Bekaa Valley town of Saadnayel. Yet again, burning tyres were set up in areas demarcating Shia and Sunni districts, and the army closed the Corniche Mazraa highway, which divides west Beirut. By last night it was the scene of a gun battle. Kuwait urged its citizens to leave Lebanon – without being obliging enough to tell them exactly how to perform this task without an airport.
Robert Fisk: Hizbollah rules west Beirut in Iran's proxy war with U.S.
The Independent - Saturday, 10 May 2008
Another American humiliation. The Shia gunmen who drove past my apartment in west Beirut yesterday afternoon were hooting their horns, making V-signs, leaning out of the windows of SUVs with their rifles in the air, proving to the Muslims of the capital that the elected government of Lebanon has lost.
And it has. The national army still patrols the streets, but solely to prevent sectarian killings or massacres. Far from dismantling the pro-Iranian Hizbollah's secret telecommunications system – and disarming the Hizbollah itself – the cabinet of Fouad Siniora sits in the old Turkish serail in Beirut, denouncing violence with the same authority as the Iraqi government in Baghdad's green zone.
The Lebanese army watches the Hizbollah road-blocks. And does nothing. As a Tehran versus Washington conflict, Iran has won, at least for now. Walid Jumblatt, the Druze leader and MP and a pro-American supporter of Mr Siniora's government, is isolated in his home in west Beirut, but has not been harmed. The same applies to Saad Hariri, one of the most prominent government MPs and the son of the murdered former prime minister Rafik Hariri. He remains in his west Beirut palace in Koreitem, guarded by police and soldiers but unable to move without Hizbollah's approval. The symbolism is everything.
When Hamas became part of the Palestinian government, the West rejected it. So Hamas took over Gaza. When the Hizbollah became part of the Lebanese government, the Americans rejected it. Now Hizbollah has taken over west Beirut. The parallels are not exact, of course.
Hamas won a convincing electoral victory. Hizbollah was a minority in the Lebanese government; its withdrawal from cabinet seats with other Shias was occasioned by Mr Siniora's American-defined policies and by their own electoral inability to change these. The Lebanese don't want an Islamic republic any more than the Palestinians. But when Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, the Hizbollah chairman, told a press conference that this was a "new era" for Lebanon, he meant what he said.
Mr Hariri's Future Television offices were invested by the army after Hizbollah surrounded it on Thursday night, its staff evacuated and the station switched off. When I turned up there yesterday morning, I joined a queue for manouche – Lebanon's hot cheese breakfast sandwiches – at Eyman's bakery in Watwat Street. I patiently waited behind four black-hooded gunmen from Hizbollah's allied (but highly venal) Amal movement only to find uniformed Lebanese soldiers representing the government patiently queuing at the next window. Law and disorder, it seems, both have to eat.
But I found far more powerful symbolism in Hamra Street, one of west Beirut's two main commercial thoroughfares. More than 100 Hizbollah men were standing or patrolling the highway, clad in new camouflage fatigues, wearing new black flak jackets and new black, peaked, American-style baseball caps and – more to the point – what appeared to be equally new American sniper rifles..
No, this is not a revolution. No, this is not a "hijacking" of west Beirut or the airport, which remains cut off by burning tyres on roads guarded by Hizbollah militiamen. But the government's supporters deserve some space. Several pointed out that the Israelis closed Beirut airport in 2006. So what right did Hizbollah have to do the same to the Lebanese now? And, according to Saad Hariri, Mr Nasrallah – when he called Mr Jumblatt "a thief and a killer" – was "authorising his murder and clearly stating that, 'I am the state and the state is me'." No wonder, then, that Mr Jumblatt fears for his life and that Mr Hariri claims the Hizbollah's coup de folie is a form of fitna, the Arabic for chaos. "I invite you, Sayed Nasrallah, to take back your fighters from the streets and to lift the siege of Beirut to protect the unity of Muslims," he said. "Israel will be rejoicing at the blockade of the country and the collapse of its economy."
Marwan Hamade, Mr Siniora's Telecommunications Minister – and victim of an attempted assassination in 2004 – admitted he had turned a blind eye to Hizbollah's underground phone system but could no longer when he realised that Hizbollah now maintains 99,000 numbered lines.
Mr Nasrallah also insisted on the reinstallation of Brigadier General Wafiq Chucair as head of security at Beirut airport, since he was not a member of Hizbollah. General Chucair was suspended after Mr Jumblatt claimed he worked for Mr Nasrallah's outfit, a demand which prompted Mr Jumblatt to say he did not know General Chucair was so important to Mr Nasrallah that it was worth closing the international airport.
And so it goes on. There was an unusually good editorial in the French-language daily L'Orient Le Jour, which asked how the Hizbollah – literally "the party of God" in Arabic – could have war as its raison d'etre yet be a factor of stability and security in Lebanese domestic affairs. "And this party, can it really call itself the 'Party of God' without creating, in the long term, the distrust of all those other children who count themselves to be from the same unique and one God?"
No, this is not a civil war. Nor is it a coup d'etat, though it meets some of the criteria. It is part of the war against America in the Middle East. The Hizbollah "must stop sowing trouble," the White House said rather meekly. Yes, like the Taliban. And al-Qa'ida. And the Iraqi insurgents. And Hamas. And who else?
--
Editorial:
A tool of foreign ambitions
The Independent - Tuesday, 13 May 2008
After more than 30 years of civil war, invasion and conflict, you might have thought that the poor people of Lebanon deserved a period of peace and reconstruction. It is apparently not to be. First came the Israeli invasion of 2006 and now comes the sudden falter of violence between Shia and pro-government forces over the weekend.
True the first flares appeared to have died down by yesterday, at least in Beirut. But there were ominous signs of the fighting spreading as Druze and Hizbollah engaged in running battles in the mountains north of Tripoli. And, while both sides seem to have accepted the imposition of the army, at least in the main parts, there are few who believe that this is anything other than a moments pause in a conflict for power which is very far from being resolved. Indeed there remain many who fear that the underlying quarrel for pre-eminence among the different religious groups cannot be resolved without an out-and-out conflict in which one side or the other emerges as victor.
It can only be hoped that this is not so, or rather it need not be. That the various factions are intent on pursuing their aims by whatever means possible should not be doubted. The Shia forces of Hizbollah, newly triumphant from their battles with the Israeli invaders, demand a greater say in government than the old constitution allows. The Christian and Druze-backed government insist that Hizbollah be disarmed before it can be integrated into civil society. And overhanging it all is the still unresolved issue of the assassination of Rafik Hariri and Syria's responsibility for it.
But then that is the problem of Lebanon, as so much of the Middle East. Its fate is to be the constant tool of the ambitions of others. Hizbollah has the backing of Iran, which sees its rise as a means of furthering its own interests in the region, and Syria, which views Hizbollah as a means of maintaining its influence in the Lebanon. The government has the support of the US together with Israel, which view the defeat of Hizbollah as a way of combating Iran's influence, and Saudi Arabia, which sees Lebanon as a front line in the fight between Shia and Sunni. Even the Arab League is tainted by the commitment of the Saudis and Egyptians to one side rather than the other.
Lebanon will never achieve peace until outsiders stop meddling in it for their own purposes and until the factions within the country achieve their own accommodation. If the latest outbreak serves to concentrate minds for fear of total civil war, it will have served a purpose. If it proves to be just a forerunner of violence ahead, then the Lebanese have indeed cause to despair.
Lies about Lebanon War
British journalist Robert Fisk and Mark Lavie expose
propaganda about 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel.
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Robert Fisk's World: Why do we keep letting the politicians get away with lies?
The Independent - Saturday, 30 August 2008
How on earth do they get away with it? Let's start with war between Hizbollah and Israel – past and future war, that is.
Back in 2006, Hizbollah captured two Israeli soldiers from their side of the Lebanese frontier and dragged them, mortally wounded, into Lebanon. The Israelis immediately launched a massive air bombardment against all of Lebanon, publicly declaring Beirut's democratically-elected and US-backed – but extremely weak – government must be held to account for what Hizbollah does.
Taking the lives of more than 1,000 Lebanese, almost all civilians, Israel unleashed its air power against the entire infrastructure of the rebuilt Lebanon, smashing highways, viaducts, electric grids, factories, lighthouses, totally erasing dozens of villages and half-destroying hundreds more before bathing the south of the country in three million cluster bomblets.
After firing thousands of old but nonetheless lethal rockets into Israel – where the total death toll was less than 200, more than half of them soldiers – Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, Hizbollah's leader, told a lie: if he had known what Israel would do in revenge for the capture of two soldiers, he announced, he would never have agreed to Hizbollah's operation.
But now here comes Israel's environment minister, Gideon Ezra, with an equally huge whopper as he warns of an even bigger, more terrible war should Hizbollah attack Israel again. "During the (2006) war, we considered the possibility of attacking Lebanon's infrastructure but we never (sic) resorted to this option, because we thought at the time that not all the Lebanese were responsible for the Hizbollah attacks... At that time, we had Hizbollah in our sights and not the Lebanese state. But the Hizbollah do not live on the moon, and some (sic) infrastructure was hit." This was a brazen lie. Yet the Americans, who arm Israel, said nothing. The European Union said nothing. No journalistic column pointed out this absolute dishonesty.
Yet why should they when George Bush and Condoleezza Rice announced that there would be peace between Israelis and Palestinians by the end of 2007 – then rolled back the moment Israel decided it didn't like the timetable. Take this week's charade in Jerusalem. The moment Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni announced that "premature" efforts to bridge gaps in the "peace process" could lead to "clashes" (Palestinians, it should be remembered, die in "clashes", Israelis are always "murdered"), my friends in Beirut and I – along with a Jewish friend in London – took bets on when Condi would fall into line. Bingo, this was Her Holiness in Jerusalem last week: "It's extremely important just to keep making forward progress rather than trying prematurely to come to some set of conclusions." "Some set", of course, means "peace"'. Once more, US foreign policy was dictated by Israel. And again, the world remained silent.
So when the world's press announced that Barack Obama's new running mate, the silver-haired Joe Biden, was "an expert in foreign policy", we all waited to be told what this meant. But all we got was a reminder that he had voted for the 2003 Iraq invasion but thought better about it later and was now against the war. Well, Goddam blow me down, that certainly shows experience. But "expertise"? No doubt in government he'll be teemed up with those old pro-Israeli has-beens, Madeleine Albright and Martin Indyk, whose new boss, Obama, virtually elected himself to the Israeli Knesset with his supine performance in Israel during his famous "international" tour.
As one of the Arab world's most prominent commentators put it to me this week, "Biden's being set up to protect Israel while Obama looks after the transportation system in Chicago." It was a cruel remark with just enough bitter reality to make it bite.
Not that we'll pay attention. And why should we when the Canadian department of national defence – in an effort to staunch the flow of Canadian blood in the sands of Afghanistan (93 servicemen and women "fallen" so far in their hopeless Nato war against the Taliban) – has brought in a Virginia-based US company called the Terrorism Research Centre to help.
According to the DND, these "terrorism experts" are going, among other subjects, to teach Canadian troops – DO NOT LAUGH, READERS, I BEG YOU DO NOT LAUGH – "the history of Islam"! And yes, these "anti-terrorism" heroes are also going to lecture the lads on "radical (sic) Islam", "sensitivities" and "cultural and ideological issues that influence insurgent decision-making". It is a mystery to me why the Canadian brass should turn to the US for assistance – at a cost of almost a million dollars, I should add – when America is currently losing two huge wars in the Muslim world.
But wait. The counterinsurgency school, which claims links to the US government, is reported to be a branch of Total Intelligence Solutions, a company run by infamous Cofer Black, a former director of CIA counterterrorism, and Erik Prince, a former US navy seal. Both men are executives with the Prince Group, the holding company for Total Intelligence Solutions and – and here readers will not laugh – a certain company called Blackwater. Yes, the very same Blackwater whose mercenary thugs blithely gunned down all those civilians on the streets of Baghdad last year. So Canada's soldiers are now going to be contaminated by these mercenary killers before they head off to the Muslim world with their unique understanding of "the history of Islam". How do they get away with it?
On a quite separate matter, you might ask the same of Conrad Black, languishing in a Florida prison after his business convictions. Responding to an enquiry from Murdoch's grotty New York Post into body searches and other appalling humiliations at the jail, Uncle Conrad, as I like to call him – for he is among the rogues I would love to have interviewed (others include the younger Mussolini and the older Yeltsin) – responded that the Florida facility was not oppressive, that "many of the people here are quite (sic) interesting" but – AND HERE IT COMES, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! – "if saintly men like Gandhi could choose to clean latrines, and Thomas More could voluntarily wear a hair shirt, this experience won't kill me".
Now when Uncle Conrad likens himself to the assassinated Mahatma, the apostle of India, that is mere hubris. But when he compares himself to England's greatest Catholic martyr, a man of saintly honour if ruthless conviction, this is truly weird. "I die the King's good servant but God's first," More reportedly said on 6 July 1535, before they chopped off his head on Tower Hill. And many are there among Uncle Conrad's enemies who might wish the same fate for the former owner of The Daily Telegraph. After all, Henry VIII didn't let Thomas get away with it.
Hizbollah 'did not use civilians as cover'
By Mark Lavie in Jerusalem
The Indepedent - Friday, 7 September 2007
In its strongest condemnation of Israel since last summer's war, Human Rights Watch said yesterday that most Lebanese civilian casualties were caused by "indiscriminate Israeli air strikes".
The international human rights organisation said there was no basis to the Israeli claim that civilian casualties resulted from Hizbollah guerrillas using civilians for cover. Israel has said that it attacked civilian areas because Hizbollah set up rocket launchers in villages and towns. More than 1,000 Lebanese were killed in the 34-day conflict, which began after Hizbollah staged a cross-border raid, killing three Israeli soldiers and capturing two others.
Israeli aircraft targeted Lebanese infrastructure, including bridges and Beirut airport, and heavily damaged a district of Beirut known as a Hizbollah stronghold, as well as attacking Hizbollah centres in villages near the border. Hizbollah fired nearly 4,000 rockets at northern Israel, killing 119 soldiers. In the fighting, 40 Israeli civilians were killed.
Kenneth Roth, Human Rights Watch executive director, said there were only "rare" cases of Hizbollah operating in civilian villages.
"To the contrary, once the war started, most Hizbollah military officials and even many political officials left the villages," he said. "Most Hizbollah military activity was conducted from prepared positions outside Lebanese villages in the hills and valleys around."
The Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mark Regev, rejected the findings. "Hizbollah adopted a deliberate strategy of shielding itself behind the civilian population and turning the civilians in Lebanon into a human shield," he said.
propaganda about 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel.
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Robert Fisk's World: Why do we keep letting the politicians get away with lies?
The Independent - Saturday, 30 August 2008
How on earth do they get away with it? Let's start with war between Hizbollah and Israel – past and future war, that is.
Back in 2006, Hizbollah captured two Israeli soldiers from their side of the Lebanese frontier and dragged them, mortally wounded, into Lebanon. The Israelis immediately launched a massive air bombardment against all of Lebanon, publicly declaring Beirut's democratically-elected and US-backed – but extremely weak – government must be held to account for what Hizbollah does.
Taking the lives of more than 1,000 Lebanese, almost all civilians, Israel unleashed its air power against the entire infrastructure of the rebuilt Lebanon, smashing highways, viaducts, electric grids, factories, lighthouses, totally erasing dozens of villages and half-destroying hundreds more before bathing the south of the country in three million cluster bomblets.
After firing thousands of old but nonetheless lethal rockets into Israel – where the total death toll was less than 200, more than half of them soldiers – Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, Hizbollah's leader, told a lie: if he had known what Israel would do in revenge for the capture of two soldiers, he announced, he would never have agreed to Hizbollah's operation.
But now here comes Israel's environment minister, Gideon Ezra, with an equally huge whopper as he warns of an even bigger, more terrible war should Hizbollah attack Israel again. "During the (2006) war, we considered the possibility of attacking Lebanon's infrastructure but we never (sic) resorted to this option, because we thought at the time that not all the Lebanese were responsible for the Hizbollah attacks... At that time, we had Hizbollah in our sights and not the Lebanese state. But the Hizbollah do not live on the moon, and some (sic) infrastructure was hit." This was a brazen lie. Yet the Americans, who arm Israel, said nothing. The European Union said nothing. No journalistic column pointed out this absolute dishonesty.
Yet why should they when George Bush and Condoleezza Rice announced that there would be peace between Israelis and Palestinians by the end of 2007 – then rolled back the moment Israel decided it didn't like the timetable. Take this week's charade in Jerusalem. The moment Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni announced that "premature" efforts to bridge gaps in the "peace process" could lead to "clashes" (Palestinians, it should be remembered, die in "clashes", Israelis are always "murdered"), my friends in Beirut and I – along with a Jewish friend in London – took bets on when Condi would fall into line. Bingo, this was Her Holiness in Jerusalem last week: "It's extremely important just to keep making forward progress rather than trying prematurely to come to some set of conclusions." "Some set", of course, means "peace"'. Once more, US foreign policy was dictated by Israel. And again, the world remained silent.
So when the world's press announced that Barack Obama's new running mate, the silver-haired Joe Biden, was "an expert in foreign policy", we all waited to be told what this meant. But all we got was a reminder that he had voted for the 2003 Iraq invasion but thought better about it later and was now against the war. Well, Goddam blow me down, that certainly shows experience. But "expertise"? No doubt in government he'll be teemed up with those old pro-Israeli has-beens, Madeleine Albright and Martin Indyk, whose new boss, Obama, virtually elected himself to the Israeli Knesset with his supine performance in Israel during his famous "international" tour.
As one of the Arab world's most prominent commentators put it to me this week, "Biden's being set up to protect Israel while Obama looks after the transportation system in Chicago." It was a cruel remark with just enough bitter reality to make it bite.
Not that we'll pay attention. And why should we when the Canadian department of national defence – in an effort to staunch the flow of Canadian blood in the sands of Afghanistan (93 servicemen and women "fallen" so far in their hopeless Nato war against the Taliban) – has brought in a Virginia-based US company called the Terrorism Research Centre to help.
According to the DND, these "terrorism experts" are going, among other subjects, to teach Canadian troops – DO NOT LAUGH, READERS, I BEG YOU DO NOT LAUGH – "the history of Islam"! And yes, these "anti-terrorism" heroes are also going to lecture the lads on "radical (sic) Islam", "sensitivities" and "cultural and ideological issues that influence insurgent decision-making". It is a mystery to me why the Canadian brass should turn to the US for assistance – at a cost of almost a million dollars, I should add – when America is currently losing two huge wars in the Muslim world.
But wait. The counterinsurgency school, which claims links to the US government, is reported to be a branch of Total Intelligence Solutions, a company run by infamous Cofer Black, a former director of CIA counterterrorism, and Erik Prince, a former US navy seal. Both men are executives with the Prince Group, the holding company for Total Intelligence Solutions and – and here readers will not laugh – a certain company called Blackwater. Yes, the very same Blackwater whose mercenary thugs blithely gunned down all those civilians on the streets of Baghdad last year. So Canada's soldiers are now going to be contaminated by these mercenary killers before they head off to the Muslim world with their unique understanding of "the history of Islam". How do they get away with it?
On a quite separate matter, you might ask the same of Conrad Black, languishing in a Florida prison after his business convictions. Responding to an enquiry from Murdoch's grotty New York Post into body searches and other appalling humiliations at the jail, Uncle Conrad, as I like to call him – for he is among the rogues I would love to have interviewed (others include the younger Mussolini and the older Yeltsin) – responded that the Florida facility was not oppressive, that "many of the people here are quite (sic) interesting" but – AND HERE IT COMES, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! – "if saintly men like Gandhi could choose to clean latrines, and Thomas More could voluntarily wear a hair shirt, this experience won't kill me".
Now when Uncle Conrad likens himself to the assassinated Mahatma, the apostle of India, that is mere hubris. But when he compares himself to England's greatest Catholic martyr, a man of saintly honour if ruthless conviction, this is truly weird. "I die the King's good servant but God's first," More reportedly said on 6 July 1535, before they chopped off his head on Tower Hill. And many are there among Uncle Conrad's enemies who might wish the same fate for the former owner of The Daily Telegraph. After all, Henry VIII didn't let Thomas get away with it.
Hizbollah 'did not use civilians as cover'
By Mark Lavie in Jerusalem
The Indepedent - Friday, 7 September 2007
In its strongest condemnation of Israel since last summer's war, Human Rights Watch said yesterday that most Lebanese civilian casualties were caused by "indiscriminate Israeli air strikes".
The international human rights organisation said there was no basis to the Israeli claim that civilian casualties resulted from Hizbollah guerrillas using civilians for cover. Israel has said that it attacked civilian areas because Hizbollah set up rocket launchers in villages and towns. More than 1,000 Lebanese were killed in the 34-day conflict, which began after Hizbollah staged a cross-border raid, killing three Israeli soldiers and capturing two others.
Israeli aircraft targeted Lebanese infrastructure, including bridges and Beirut airport, and heavily damaged a district of Beirut known as a Hizbollah stronghold, as well as attacking Hizbollah centres in villages near the border. Hizbollah fired nearly 4,000 rockets at northern Israel, killing 119 soldiers. In the fighting, 40 Israeli civilians were killed.
Kenneth Roth, Human Rights Watch executive director, said there were only "rare" cases of Hizbollah operating in civilian villages.
"To the contrary, once the war started, most Hizbollah military officials and even many political officials left the villages," he said. "Most Hizbollah military activity was conducted from prepared positions outside Lebanese villages in the hills and valleys around."
The Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mark Regev, rejected the findings. "Hizbollah adopted a deliberate strategy of shielding itself behind the civilian population and turning the civilians in Lebanon into a human shield," he said.
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